Vietnam Flood Victims Get Aid
The skies cleared briefly over flood-ravaged central Vietnam on Saturday, giving aid workers a chance to get food to hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes. The death toll has climbed to 433.
After a week of torrential storms that spawned the worst flooding in a century, a warm sun emerged over the seven devastated provinces that are home to 7 million people.
"We've got a window of opportunity to get this food and water out there," said Eelko Brouwer, of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, directing workers to load up several tons of instant noodles for distribution.
Vietnam Television showed a dozen people frantically wading in waters chest-deep to swarm a Red Cross boat carrying packets of instant noodles. One old man immediately ripped open a package and began eating them dry.
By evening, a drizzle set in again, with more rain forecast Sunday.
In the worst-hit area, Thua Thien Hue province - home to the ancient city of Hue - 257 were reported dead and 71 missing. Officials estimate 90 percent of the 1 million residents of the province have been displaced.
From the air Saturday, Hue and its surrounding areas looked like a shimmering patchwork of lakes, dotted by a string of telephone poles across the horizon. Rice paddies had become coffee-brown rivers. Rooftops of flooded homes dotted the surface.
Many people were still trapped on their roofs and in trees. One man, his roof barely above water, told how a loved one died five days ago and he had to tie the body to a pillar in his house to keep it from drifting away.
In Hue, people with relatives missing walked past a row of 10 open coffins, looking at the bodies inside as they held their noses against the stench of decomposition.
Workers continued to labor around the clock to clear a landslide that damaged two miles of highway between Hue and Danang to the south. They hoped to reopen the mountain pass Sunday to increase the flow of relief supplies to Thua Thien Hue province.
A helicopter arrived with food supplies, antibiotics and rehydration kits for Hue's 1,100-bed main hospital that serves the region. A flooded generator left it without electricity, food and water for three days.
Doctors and nurses performed surgery by flashlight and used rainwater to cook food for the 3,000 patients and staff members, vice director Bui Duc Phu said Saturday.
"We ran out of food on the second day of the rains and I had to take a boat to a nearby convent to borrow 400 kilos (880 pounds) of rice," he said. "But we have all survived. No one died from lack of medicine or because of care. We even delivered 60 babies."
The water level had receded in some of Hue on Saturday, but the historic imperial Citadel in the city center remained reachable only by boat. It survived some of the Vietnam War's heaviest fighting, but the floods nearly breached the fortress walls.
During a three-day period, Hue and othr areas were hit by more than seven feet of rain, a record since Vietnam began keeping figures a century ago.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has mobilized all available military personnel in one of the country's largest rescue operations and ordered the release of 8,400 tons of food from the national reserves. 80 tons reached Thua Thien Hue on Saturday.
Written By Tini Tran.
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