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HANOI - China and Vietnam have evacuated hundreds of thousands of people from low-lying coastal areas as Typhoon Lekima lashed the region with torrential rains and heavy winds.
The storm passed over the central Vietnam province of Quang Binh on Wednesday night and blew westward toward Laos, officials said. They said the storm hit relatively under-populated areas but they would not know the extent of damage until Thursday local time.
The typhoon made landfall late near China's beach resort of Sanya, on the southern tip of tropical Hainan island, trapping tourists and forcing the evacuation of 225,000 people.
Vietnam had moved hundreds of thousands of children and the elderly to higher ground.
More than 20,000 fishing boats were ordered back to port as the storm shut down almost all tourist attractions in Sanya during what should have been a peak national holiday week.
Lekima - the Vietnamese name of a fruit - carried winds of up to 120km/h from the east. Heavy rains fell in the central provinces of Ha Tinh and Nghe An.
More than 3000 passengers and some 1200 cars were stranded in Hainan on Tuesday as ferries linking the island province with the Chinese mainland were suspended because of the typhoon.
Vietnamese soldiers and disaster officials helped move children and the elderly to school compounds in Thanh Hoa, 150km south of Hanoi, while fishing boats dropped anchor in sheltered rivers, a Reuters reporter travelling in the region said.
The government also warned of landslides and flash floods in the central provinces.
The storm, which killed five people in the Philippines at the weekend, will not hurt coffee and rice crops or crude oil production, Vietnam's key export products, which all lie hundreds miles further to the south.
Vietnam faces up to 10 storms a year and Lekima is the fifth in 2007.
Another could be on the way.
Tropical storm Krosa evolved into a typhoon on the west Pacific on Wednesday and is expected to hit Taiwan and China's east coast over the next few days.
The mid-strength typhoon will reach the east coast of Taiwan on Saturday, the island's Central Weather Bureau said on its target="new">website.
- REUTERS
