Dec. 25 (UPI) — Over one million were evacuated in southern Vietnam by Monday as Typhoon Tembin, which ravaged the Philippines over the weekend, approached.
Residents of 15 provinces and cities were relocated to safe places in anticipation of the typhoon, which was blamed for at least 230 deaths as it passed the Philippines over the weekend. Another 100 are missing and 75,000 are homeless.
Tembin was reduced back to a tropical storm as it approached Vietnam over cooler water, with winds of up to 71 mph. Still, the Vietnamese government closed oil rigs in the South China Sea and ordered fishermen to stay in port on Monday, which is a working day and not a holiday. The storm is also interrupting a rice harvest and a shrimp harvest.
Dozens of flights leaving and arriving in airports in Ho Chi Minh City, Phu Quoc and Can Tho were canceled.
The country’s Central Hydrometeorological Forecast Center said on Monday that the storm’s center is 200 miles off the coast of Con Dao and moving westward. Light rain is falling long Vietnam’s coast.
The typhoon, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Vinta, reached sustained winds of 74 mph with gusts of up to 90 mph as it moved from Mindanao to other Philippine islands, according to the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical Astronomical Services Administration.
