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PDC Updates | Oct 9, 2007
Typhoon Lekima Severely Damages Central VietnamTropical cyclone 16W began well offshore to the SE of Hainan Island, China, September 30, quickly strengthening into a tropical storm named Lekima a day later. It took several days for the storm to increase sufficiently to attain typhoon status as it moved over the warm waters of the South China Sea. Fortunately, Lekima did not become a super typhoon. It was, however, powerful enough to produce high surf and resulted in the evacuation of more than 400,000 people along central Vietnam’s coastline. The most dangerous aspects of the storm were the very strong winds, coupled with heavy rainfall and flooding following its path. The rainfall over the central part of the country was estimated at over 100 cm for a three-hour period according to NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and as shown below. Flooding rain and gusty winds continued inland over Laos and into Thailand after passing through Vietnam. 
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) imagery estimated rainfall
at over 100cm over a 3 hour period shortly after Typhoon Lekima made landfall
along the Central Vietnamese Coastline.
GLIDE number assigned for this event: TC-2007-000178-VNM.
Left: A makeshift bridge is submerged in Qionghai, Hainan (island province),
China, on Tuesday, October 2. State media reported that more than 100,000 people
in China were evacuated as Lekima approached the area. (Image: Xinhua News Agency).
Right: Fishermen in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam, move their small boat to land in
preparation for the arrival of Lekima. (Image: AP)
When Typhoon Lekima made landfall in Vietnam, rapidly moving across the narrow part of the coastal nation, the damage was extreme. Representatives of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told Reuters that the mass mobilization to move “some 400,000 people” out of the way of the storm worked. “Although the damage was immense the loss of life was minimal,” said Irja Sandberg, Federation representative in Vietnam. “Without this mass mobilization we might have had headlines saying ‘hundreds dead.’ As it is, the story has faded out of international news.” Even as of reports released in Vietnam at 4 p.m. Friday, October 5, local time and date, (9 a.m. Friday, UTC; 11 p.m. Thursday, Hawaii Standard Time) many hours after the storm had passed, the number of lives lost was no higher than 10, with an additional 6 people designated as missing. By Sunday, Vietnamese news services were reporting the death toll had risen to 32, with 16 people identified as “missing.” Vietnam Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai told the Reuters news agency, “Thanks to good preparatory work the [human] damage from the storm is not large.” Various reports during the storm period on the Reuters News Service indicated at least 77,000 homes destroyed, along with 7,000 hectares (17,297 acres) of rice paddies and 29,000 hectares (71,660 acres) of other food crops. Some dams and dikes were damaged and rivers were expected to take days to drain dangerously high water levels. According to Reuters, Vietnam is hit by an average of 10 tropical cyclones a year, which cause damage in the range of many millions of U.S. dollars annually. The government of Vietnam is currently working with Pacific Disaster Center to improve its capacity to manage disasters and mitigate the effects of storms and flooding, and Pacific Disaster Center is the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” project manager for this storm and flood event.
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