Southern Vietnam braces for Typhoon Tembin, 1 mln locals evacuated

HO CHI MINH CITY, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's southern localities have organized evacuation of nearly 1 million people, and temporarily closed schools, fearing that Typhoon Tembin, which battered southern Philippines on Friday, claiming 200 human lives, would land in them on Monday night or Tuesday early morning.

Ho Chi Minh City is evacuating some 5,000 residents of rural Can Gio district, while southern Bac Lieu province is evacuating nearly 366,000 people, the municipal and provincial authorities said on Monday.

Evacuation is also underway in other southern provinces, including Ba Ria Vung Tau, Ca Mau, Soc Trang and Hau Giang which will experience very strong winds and high waves, according to Vietnam's National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

During an online meeting with southern localities on Sunday, Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc ordered them to mobilize all forces to focusing on evacuating people who live near the sea, reinforcing their houses, and bringing all fishermen ashore.

"We should be noted that Typhoon Linda in 2017 (which stroke Vietnam's southern provinces) killed and left 3,000 people missing. That is a heart-broken lesson," he said.

Natural disasters, including 15 typhoons and storms and many flash floods and landslides, have killed or left 386 people in Vietnam missing so far this year, and caused property losses of 2.6 billion U.S. dollars, according to the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Typhoon Damrey alone, the strongest typhoon hitting Vietnam in more than a decade, and subsequent floods in November, killed or left 123 people in the country's central region missing, injured hundreds of others, and caused losses of some 1 billion U.S. dollars. Enditem