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Vietnam typhoon death toll at least 122

Vietnam - Floods after typhoon hits
Vietnam - Floods after typhoon hits

The death toll in Vietnam from typhoon Ketsana, one of the worst disasters to hit the country in recent years, stands at 122.

An official at the national flood and storm control committee in Hanoi also listed 28 missing and 252 injured.

The Danang office of the flood and storm committee, closer to the heart of the area where the typhoon made landfall last Tuesday, said there were 122 dead and 12 missing.

The heaviest tolls came in the central Vietnam fishing province of Quang Ngai, south of Danang, and in Kon Tum, a mountainous province with a large population of poor ethnic minority tribes.

Initial estimates of the damage in Vietnam shot up to $587m, according to government figures released yesterday for 10 out of 14 provinces affected by the typhoon.

Flood waters have been receding in much of the stricken region, leaving residents cleaning up the mess and tallying the damage to their farms and homes.

Vietnam suffers annually from tropical storms and typhoons, but this year's toll exceeds the deaths when Tropical Storm Durian killed at least 70 in the country's south, and Typhoon Xangsane left more than 70 dead in central Vietnam, both in 2006.

Ketsana has brought devastation across Southeast Asia, first killing at least 293 people in the Philippines last weekend before striking Vietnam. It also claimed 17 lives in Cambodia.

Details are slowly emerging from Laos, too, where its Red Cross said Ketsana had killed 24 people.

Typhoon Parma

Meanwhile, a typhoon that threatened to bring more devastation to millions of flood survivors in the Philippines has veered away from the disaster zone.

However officials warn it could still cause major damage.

Typhoon Parma, billed earlier as a super-typhoon, altered course towards the northernmost tip of the Philippines' main Luzon island and away from the nation's partly submerged capital Manila.

Parma is now expected to land this evening on the province of Cagayan, north of its earlier predicted landfall in Aurora province and about 400km from Manila.