At least 99 people died and 14 people went missing when typhoon Ketsana lashed central Vietnam on Tuesday, according to the latest statistics from the National Flood and Storm Control Committee.

Over 400,000 homes, schools, bridges, and other public works were also destroyed or severely damaged, it said.

Rainfall has continued since the storm, reaching 42-224 millimeters in central and central highlands provinces as of Thursday night, according to the committee.

The overflowing of local rivers was decreasing, but waterways in Quang Binh and Quang Ngai provinces were still at alarming flood-warning levels, it reported.

In Kon Tum province, where flooding was the worst it has been in 100 years on Wednesday, up to 13 mountainous communes were still inaccessible on Thursday, and local people were striving against starvation.

In response to the damages caused by the fierce storm, which prompted the evacuation of 370,000 people and 46,000 boats, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has ordered that 7,700 tons of rice and VND230 billion (US$12.89 million) be extracted from the national reserve for storm and flood relief.

The European Commission, meanwhile, committed 2 million euros to Ketsana victims in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, following another 2 million euros assigned to the Philippines, according to the Delegation of the European Commission to Vietnam,

A team from the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office will come to Vietnam this week to estimate needs in various localities, the agency said.

Local charity organizations and others civil society groups are calling for more emergency relief for central provinces.

One of the most destructive storms in recent years, Ketsana wreaked havoc in the Philippines over the weekend while still a tropical storm. It then strengthened over the East Sea to batter Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, AFP reported, adding that its death toll in Southeast Asia hit 383 on Thursday.

New threats

Also on Thursday night Le Thanh Hai, vice director of Vietnam’s national weather forecast center, said storm Parma off the Pacific Ocean had strengthened into a “super storm.”

The British-owned Tropical Storm Risk website forecast Parma would enter the East Sea on Tuesday with winds blowing at 154-177 kilometers per hour, local newspaper Tuoi Tre reported.

Bui Minh Tang, director of the forecast center, said there’s a possibility that Parma, which is stronger than Ketsana, would hit the East Sea even earlier, within the next two days.

However, it’s still too soon to forecast whether it will affect Vietnam or not, according to Tang.

Additionally, storm Melor, another Pacific storm 1,000 kilometers from Parma, is strengthening, Hai said.

Source: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre