The Đắk Kar hydro-electric dam was hit by a landslide in the southern province of Bình Phước on Thursday.— VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Southern localities affected by typhoon Wipha, have taken drastic measures to ensure the safety of people living in high risk areas.
On Phú Quốc Island in the southern province of Kiên Giang, the authority banned all vessels from going to sea and halted all meetings while mobilising all forces to prepare for bad weather.
Mai Văn Huỳnh, chairman of the People’s Committee told Tuổi trẻ (Youth) online newspaper “Most of the island has been inundated with rain by noon of Friday.”
Even areas that had not been flooded before, including communes of Dương Tơ, Hàm Ninh, Gành Dầu, and An Thới Town, were now inundated, he said.
It was estimated more than 4,400 households were submerged, the island’s Dương Đông Town suffered the most from the storm, he said.
Local rescue teams and soldiers evacuated thousands of people to temporarily accommodation in health centres, offices, schools and hotels that had not been flooded.
In the southern province of Bình Phước, rescue forces yesterday evacuated 5,000 people living in Bù Đăng District downstream of Đắk Kar hydro-electric dam after the dam was put on high alert due to prolonged torrential rains and its valve door was jammed on Thursday afternoon.
Previously, the locality also evacuated about 1,000 people to safer places in the district.
The move came after the provincial steering committee on natural disaster prevention and control together with Đắk Kar Hydro-power Joint Stock Company checked the water level of the dam at 3pm on Thursday.
At that time, the water level of the dam is 477 metres, equal to about 14 million cubic metres of water. Due to the torrential rains’, water had overflowed causing a landslide at its foot. Torrential rains of 80-100mm are forecast in the coming days.
In the southern province of Đồng Nai, authorities yesterday continued evacuating an additional of 1,200 households, living in four communes of Núi Tượng, Nam Cát Tiên, Đắc Lua and Phú Thịnh in Tân Phú District, near Đồng Nai River, to a safe place after torrential rains hit the river’s upstream.
The Đồng Nai 5 Hydropower Plant discharged water on Thursday night, causing problems for the communes.
Previously, the administration evacuated 700 households in the communes at midnight of Thursday, said Võ Tuấn Dũng, chairman of the People’s Committee of the district.
It was estimated that hundreds of tonnes of caged fish and poultry died due to the flooding.
The National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting yesterday warned that heavy rains with rainfall of 50-120mm will continue hitting southern provinces of Đắk Nông, Lâm Đồng, Bình Phước, Đồng Nai on Saturday. — VNS