Storms lash Southeast Asia, disease fears grow in India
Storms lash Southeast Asia, disease fears grow in India
Agencies, Manila/Beijing
Twin storms battered Southeast Asia on Tuesday, while in India and Bangladesh, officials were trying to stem outbreaks of disease as monsoon floods recede.
At least six people were killed on Tuesday when powerful Typhoon Imbudo swept across the northern Philippines, disrupting power at the main international airport and ripping off roofs.
In northern Vietnam, Tropical Storm Koni, downgraded from a typhoon, lashed the region after engulfing southern China's Hainan island on Monday night.
Koni dumped heavy rains on Hainan and disrupted flights but caused little damage and no deaths or injuries had been reported, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Imbudo, which means "funnel" in the Pilipino language, is the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines since 1998, swept across rice and corn-growing areas on the main island of Luzon and dumped heavy rains on the central Visayas and southern Mindanao regions.
The Department of Agriculture said it had no immediate reports on the extent of damage to crops.
The weather bureau said Imbudo had intensified since Monday, with winds of 190 kph (118 mph) and gusts of 230 kph (143 mph). It was expected to move northwest toward Hong Kong on Thursday.
Taiwan issued a warning to ships on Thursday as the storm headed for the southern Chinese coast.
In China, more than 3.5 million people have been left homeless by floods, the International Federation of Red Cross said on Tuesday as it launched an emergency appeal for help.
"An enormous number of people are living under plastic sheeting or in tents on top of the very dikes whose rupture destroyed their homes and their fields," said Alisdair Henley, head of the Red Cross's delegation in Beijing.
"These people then have to go back and rebuild their lives and livelihoods -- and they need all the help they can get."
A Red Cross assessment mission to the worst affected areas in eastern, central and southern China concluded that around 100 million people were affected in 16 provinces.
Many of them have lost all their belongings and will be unable to return home for several weeks.
Hundreds of people have been killed and the death toll continues to rise daily.
Authorities in Vietnam's northern coastal provinces urged fishermen to return to port as Koni, which means "swan" in Korean, moved in from the Tonkin Gulf and by late Tuesday had been downgraded further to a tropical low-pressure system.
Weather officials said wind speeds at the center of the storm were 39 to 61 kilometers (24 to 40 miles) per hour, down sharply on earlier wind strength, and a weather report said it would dump torrential rains on eight provinces along a 500 km (310 mile) stretch.
In Japan, Kyodo news agency said the death toll from weekend flooding and mudslides in the south rose to 15 on Tuesday with seven missing. A meteorological agency official said there was no heavy rain in the area on Tuesday.
In northern India, the Red Cross on Tuesday dispatched food and medicine to remote areas where hundreds are suffering from malaria and water-borne diseases after the worst floods in 50 years.
Flood waters have receded in the northeastern state of Assam but authorities have declared an epidemic alert because about a million displaced people are still living in temporary shelters with no access to clean drinking water.
Five people have died of diarrhea since Sunday and authorities have sounded an epidemic alert throughout the state because many places remain waterlogged.
South Asia's annual monsoon, which began in June, has wreaked havoc in eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh, killing nearly 350 people and damaging infrastructure.
Floodwaters were also receding slowly from most affected areas in Bangladesh with virtually no rain over past few days, officials said on Tuesday.