Emergency supplies trickled through yesterday to central Vietnam where at least 475 people have been killed in the worst floods in 40 years. Relief workers warned that hundreds of thousands of isolated villagers are threatened by hunger and disease.
"The floods are practically over but we now need to prevent any disease and get basic food supplies to isolated villages," Mr Eelko Brouwer, head of rescue services for the international Red Cross, said from Hue.
He warned that the death toll could climb "as we only began reaching cut-off villages . . . We have about 15 trucks in Hue to deliver aid and the army is putting at our disposal five helicopters to get to mountainous areas where the roads are bad." Rescuers had managed to deliver some 12 tonnes of emergency food in the worst-hit areas, he said.
"About one million people will need food aid and we will deliver emergency supplies to 150,000 of the most affected families," Mr John Geoghegan, head of the Red Cross delegation in Vietnam, said. "We estimate we'll need $2.7 million to avoid a food shortage in the regions affected by the catastrophe."
Mr Huynh Bich, head of the government's provincial flood and typhoon committee, based in the coastal town of Danang, called the floods "the most murderous and devastating to hit central Vietnam since the end of the war in 1975".
The monsoon rains that caused the flooding have nearly stopped and water levels have fallen significantly, according to Mr Nguyen Ngoc Dong, a spokesman for the nation's disaster relief committee.
However, aid workers said getting supplies to the victims was difficult because flood waters remained high in the countryside, particularly in the province of Quang Binh, parts of which are still covered by almost a metre of water.
"Our priority now is to mobilise the army and militias to transport aid collected from across the country, such as clothes, medicine, tents, food, and drinking water, to the affected zones," said Mr Dong.
Officials estimate that in Thua Thien-Hue, the worst-hit area in the centre of the country, some 604,000 houses have been destroyed together with schools, dispensaries and hospitals, while 64,000 hectares of paddy fields have been swamped.
"The mountainous areas in the districts of Nam dong and A Luoi [near Hue] . . . are still practically isolated and helicopter flights show they have suffered a number of landslips," a Red Cross volunteer, Ms Gaelle Lebarbu, said.
In some areas near the sea "residents have had to spend several days on the roofs of their houses and they no longer have any fuel to boil water and make it potable," she added. Two rescue airlifts have been set up in Hanoi and southern Ho Chi Minh City for air force planes, which began an emergency service to Hue yesterday.