Floodwaters from the torrential rain accompanying the ninth storm from the East Sea this year have submerged or destroyed nearly 337,000 homes, schools and other man-made structures.

Crops have been ruined on a massive scale too.

On Wednesday, five of the ten or more affected provinces - Thua Thien Hue, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen and Kon Tum - reported crop losses totaling VND2,165 billion (US$112.14 million).

Although the rain had eased and river levels were dropping, many roads in the region remained deep underwater that night.

In Quang Nam, streets in Que Xuan Commune were up to 1.5 meters deep in water, and National Highway 1A was jammed for hours.

Nine of the 15 rural communes and urban wards in the coastal town of Hoi An were submerged to such an extent that only rooftops could be seen in some places.

The flooding was almost as bad in Da Nang, and many roads are still littered with tree trunks and limbs, garbage and broken billboards.

Da Nang City’s Environmental and Urban Company said it had dispatched nearly 1,000 employees to clean up the mess, and estimated it would take at least five more days to finish the job.

Nguyen Huu Tuyen of Vietnam Railways said the water had washed away or damaged miles of track in Hue, Da Nang, and Quang Ngai.

While none of the train lines had been restored by late Wednesday, the broken sections of the main north-south line should be fixed by Thursday afternoon, Tuyen said.

As elsewhere in the region, many communities in Thua Thien-Hue were isolated by the floods.

In the province’s Phu Luong Commune, the roads were up to two meters underwater.

“The storm had already left yet the floodwaters continued to rise, in fact to the highest level in ten years. It was so unexpected,” said Nguyen Viet Ngu, chairman of Phu Luong People’s Committee.

“It’s going to be really hard on the locals for the next few days,” Ngu said.

The nation is being urged to pitch in and help the central provinces hit by Ketsana, which killed at least 246 people in the Philippines before crossing Vietnam and taking 11 lives in Cambodia.

The typhoon is barely off Vietnam’s radar yet already two more storms - Parma and Melor - are brewing over the Pacific Ocean, national weather center director Bui Minh Tang told Thanh Nien.

On Wednesday afternoon, Parma was 1,100 kilometers to the east of the Philippines, while Melor was some 2,400 kilometers farther away, Tang said.

“Both storms are traveling westward at 25-30 kilometers per hour at the moment but they are forecast to become super storms within the next two to three days,” he said.

Whether it will reach the East Sea and pummel Vietnam is still unknown.

Source: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre