Hanoi - Vietnam Airlines has cancelled all flights to and from central Vietnam due to tropical storm Ketsana, an official confirmed Tuesday. Airline official Luong Truong An said flights on routes affected by the storm were cancelled for Monday and Tuesday.
"We expect to resume all flights on routes affected by the storm on Wednesday when the storm has abated," An said.
Vietnam's national weather authority said the eye of the storm was expected to hit between Quang Tri and Quang Nam provinces midday, with wind speeds of up to 183 kilometres per hour. The storm caused sea levels at high tide to rise more than 5 metres.
Authorities said a 10-year-old girl was swept away by high waters while crossing the Rin River in Quang Ngai province on Monday.
By Tuesday, the country's Central Committee on Storm and Flood Control said 167,000 people had been evacuated from risk areas. Some 46,500 fishing boats carrying 193,000 fishermen had moved to safe areas, while 4,000 other boats were instructed to take shelter in the offshore Paracel Islands.
Authorities said they had no communication with one fishing boat carrying 23 crew since Sunday evening.
Ketsana, the strongest tropical storm so far this year, is expected to cause flash floods and submerge thousands of hectares of farmland.
The storm will hit central Vietnam just after unrelated rainstorms caused four days of flooding that killed at least 17 people and left six missing.
