Flood warning in Vietnam, but storm spares coffee

A farmer prepares to leave his flooded house in Vietnam's southern Mekong river delta, 2002. The United States and Vietnam will jointly study the impact of climate change on the Mekong Delta and other low-lying river regions worldwide. (AFP/File/Hoang Dinh Nam)

By Ho Binh Minh

HANOI, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Vietnam's government issued flash flood and landslide warnings on Tuesday as heavy rains followed tropical storm Noul, which weakened overnight and caused no damage to coffee production.

Two people were killed as the storm made landfall near the beach resort of Nha Trang late on Monday, swamping 107 small fishing boats near the shore, the government said.

Heavy rains from Noul, the 10th storm tracked by the Southeast Asian country this year, raised river water levels in two provinces where flooding caused by torrential rains killed at least 12 people last week.

Coffee output from the world's second largest producer was not affected by the storm.

Rains on Sunday and Monday delayed the harvest slightly but farmers in the central highland provinces of Daklak and Lam Dong resumed picking cherries on Tuesday, residents said.

"The rain has stopped and it's a clear, sunny day today," a resident in Daklak, Vietnam's top coffee-growing province, said by telephone.

A coffee trader in the neighbouring province of Lam Dong said the weather was now good for the harvesting and drying of beans.

The centre of the storm had earlier been forecast to cross Lam Dong, some 500 metres (1,640 feet) above sea level.

The government said regional rivers were reaching dangerous levels and provincial authorities needed to exercise caution because of possible "flash floods on streams and rivers, landslides in mountains and inundation in low-lying areas".

Earlier the government had warned that the storm threatened lives and and property in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam's food basket, where the latest rice crop had been harvested.

But except for flooding in several areas near Ho Chi Minh City after a power plant reservoir flushed water to reduce pressure in Binh Duong province, no damages to crops or casualties had been reported.

Farmers in the Mekong Delta will soon start planting the winter-spring rice crop, which provides the highest yields and which goes mainly to the export market.

Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer after Brazil and is expected to be the second-largest rice exporter this year after Thailand.

(Editing by Alan Raybould and Sanjeev Miglani)

Hun Sen refuses to join his powerful ally, Hok Lundy

Hun Sen cancels trip to inaugurate hydro-power dam in Kampot

PHNOM PENH, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has canceled his trip to coastal province of Kampot to inaugurate a hydro-power dam due to fear of rainy weather, dam developer confirmed with Xinhua here on Tuesday.

During the trip scheduled on Tuesday, the premier planned to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the Kamchay Dam, which is developed by the SinoHydro Corporation, said Zhao Jinhui, resident director of the corporation.

The ceremony will be postponed, but the exact date is not decided yet, he added.

While explaining the change, Hun Sen expressed concerns about safety in the wake of the helicopter crash that killed National Police Commissioner Hok Lundy and three others on Nov. 9, according to the reports of English-language newspaper the Phnom Penh Post on Tuesday.

It is believed that the chopper crashed due to heavy rain, it added.

"I will not take any risk because of the accident that happened to our four patriots flying at night and in heavy rain. We regret their loss," the paper quoted him as saying.

According to the schedule, the premier should have taken his helicopter to Kampot on Tuesday morning. A mild rain started at midnight and lasted till Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Water Management and Meteorology has issued a notice warning that heavy rain and electrical storms are expected to pound the southern coast in the next few days.

Hun Sen cancelled trip to Kampot out of concern over storm Noul hitting South Vietnam [-Hok Lundy's accident taught Hun Sen the lesson?]

Storm churns towards Vietnam

Monday, November 17, 2008
By Ho Binh Minh
Reuters

A strong tropical storm churned towards southern Vietnam on Monday, threatening a direct hit on the densely populated Mekong Delta and substantial damage to the country's coffee production.

State-run forecasters said Tropical Storm Noul, with winds of 88 kph (55 mph), would reach landfall around the tourist spots of Nha Trang and Mui Ne late on Monday and cross the coffee-growing province of Lam Dong.

Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer and the third-largest producer of crude oil in Southeast Asia.

Noul's arrival coincides with the peak of the coffee harvest in the Central Highlands. Torrential rains could halt the harvest and prevent farmers from drying beans outdoors, causing delays and lowering quality.

The storm could also wreak havoc in the delta, which normally avoids the worst of the storms that roll in from the South China Sea, making people who live there relatively unprepared for disaster.

"It could cause huge damage to lives and property," Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said in an urgent telegraph to provincial authorities and state oil and gas group Petrovietnam.

All offshore oil production remained operational, an official from Petrovietnam said, although state television said Vietsovpetro, a Russian joint venture, would temporarily shut operation on four oil rigs and evacuate workers.

It did not say how much production would be affected.

In his telegraph, Hung ordered the immediate recall of all fishing boats in the area and said children should not go to school as preparations were made for mass evacuations across a 400 km (250 mile) swathe of coastline.

More than 74,000 people needed evacuation while more than 133,000 fishermen had been warned to take shelter as the storm moved to within 100 kms (65 miles) of the coast, the government said.

In neighbouring Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen cancelled a scheduled trip on Tuesday to the coastal province of Kampot, abutting Vietnam, because of the storm.

Vietnamese government reports said more than 17,000 fishing boats were operating near the Spratlys in the path of the storm.

The Mekong Delta, where the latest rice crop has been harvested, is rarely hit by storms. Typhoon Linda caught the region unawares in November 1997, killing at least 464 people. The government never revised an initial tally that listed more than 3,200 people as missing.

(Additional reporting by Nguyen Nhat Lam and Ek Madra in Phnom Penh; Editing by Ed Cropley and David Fox)