Vietnam next after China and Philippines hit by major storm
Typhoon Conson has been downgraded Saturday to Tropical Storm Conson, after hammering the Philippines and China’s Hainan Island during the week.
Scores of people have been killed and Conson is now expected to move across the Gulf of Tonkin throughout Saturday and will make landfall again near Hanoi in Vietnam.
The storm battered the Phillippines Thursday and Friday with maximum winds speeds of 86 miles per hour (139 kilometer per hour), which are equal to those of a category 1 hurricane. At least 39 people have been confirmed dead, while hundreds have been displaced by flooding and over 80 are missing.
When the storm reached China, it had weakened slightly, but aggravated severe flooding in the region which has killed over 140 people, destroyed over 100,000 homes and displaced over 1 million people.
Xinhua, the state-run news provider, reports the cost of the flooding to be over $8 billion, while other reports put the number of dead from Conson alone to be two, a security guard and a motorcyclist.
China is currently struggling to contain and manage some of the worst flooding in over a decade. In 1998 flooding caused a major national disaster, killing 4000 people and destroying the homes of over 18 million.
Source:Europe News.Net
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