Vietnam calls in fishing boats as it braces for Typhoon Hagabis

Nov 22, 2007, 17:01 GMT

Hanoi- Flood-weary Vietnam has called thousands of fishing boats ashore and plans to evacuate thousands of people as Typhoon Hagibis threatened the southern coast, the seventh storm to affect the country in recent months, officials said Thursday.

Packing wind speed of up to 133 kilometers an hour, Hagabis was 450 kilometers off Vietnam's southern coast Thursday morning and was moving northwest at five kilometers an hour, according to the National Hydrometeorology Forecast Center.

While initially it looked as if t he storm would make landfall between Ho Chi Minh City and the beach resort town of Nha Trang, forecasters said the storm appeared to be veering north and could dump yet more rain on the still-flooded central provinces that have suffered hundreds of deaths in recent months.

'We have ordered all boats in the southern and central region ashore, asked local people to consolidate their possessions. We have also asked the military force on standby,' said Doan Thanh Trung with the Flood and Storm Department in southern region.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent diplomatic notes to Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand to ask for shelter for Vietnamese boats in emergency cases, the centre said.

The Vietnamese coast guard made contact with more than 37,500 boats with 207,160 fishermen from 15 central and southern provinces of the typhoon and asked them to go ashore or find shelters, according to the Central Flood and Storm Department.

'More than 500 boats with 3,200 fishermen have found shelters in the waters of Indonesia and Malaysia,' Trung said.

Southern and central provinces have also worked out plans to evacuate tens of thousands of people ahead of the typhoon.

'The evacuation will not be carried out until 12 hours before the typhoon makes landfall,' Trung said. 'It is forecast to make landfall late Friday but we don't know yet where exactly where it will be.'

'This is a very complicated typhoon, as it is gaining strength and changing course,' said Bui Minh Tang, director of the National Hydrometeorology Forecast Center.

Floods and storm have killed more than 300 people in Vietnam this year, including some 90 people killed in the storm Lekima and the floods it triggered in early October.