Thousands of people fled their homes in Vietnam Saturday as Typhoon Vamco barrelled towards central regions already pummelled by weeks of successive storms.

Airports have been shut, beaches closed and a fishing ban put in place, as the country braces for winds of up to 100 kilometres (60 miles) per hour when the typhoon makes landfall on Sunday, likely close to Hue.

Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in four central provinces, according to the disaster management authority, while state media said hundreds of thousands more may have to flee.

A series of storms have hit central Vietnam over the past six weeks, causing flooding and landslides that have killed at least 159 people, authorities said, while 70 others are missing.

The severe weather has also damaged or destroyed more than 400,000 homes, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Roads and bridges have been washed away, power supplies disrupted, and crucial food crops destroyed, leaving at least 150,000 people at immediate risk of food shortages, it added.

"There has been no respite for more than eight million people living in central Vietnam," said Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu, Vietnam Red Cross Society President.

"Each time they start rebuilding their lives and livelihoods, they are pummeled by yet another storm."

Typhoon Vamco has already caused devastation in the Philippines.

Emergency response teams were dispatched to the northeast on Saturday where more than 340,000 people have been affected by severe flooding following Vamco that killed at least 33 people across the country, disaster agencies said.

Twenty of the deaths were recorded in the provinces of Cagayan, Isabela and Nueva Vizcaya, which have become the focus of rescue efforts.

Hundreds of people were trapped on rooftops in the hardest hit areas along the Cagayan river with rescuers unable to reach them due to the strong current, said the spokesman for the regional Office of Civil Defense.

Vast swathes of the region were under water in what officials have described as the worst flooding in living memory.

The release of water from Magat dam has exacerbated the impact.

Hard-hit Central America in crosshairs of another hurricane
Tegucigalpa (AFP) Nov 14, 2020 - Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua announced evacuations Friday as a second major hurricane in days closed in on Central America with the region still reeling from deadly storm Eta last week.

Eta killed more than 200 people across Central America, with heavy rain bursting river banks and triggering landslides as far north as Chiapas, Mexico.

The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami has now confirmed that another major hurricane is approaching Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala, whose populations total more than 30 million.

The NHC forecasts Tropical Storm Iota to become a Category 2 or 3 hurricane as it moves into the same shell-shocked countries, hitting Nicaragua and Honduras by late Sunday or early Monday -- less than two weeks after Eta hit.

Authorities in Honduras on Friday ordered the evacuation by police and the army of people in the area of San Pedro Sula -- the country's second city and industrial capital, located 180 kilometers (110 miles) north of Tegucigalpa.

"Our red alert (in Honduras) orders mandatory evacuations," Julissa Mercado of Honduras' Emergency Response Agency told AFP.

The San Pedro Sula valley was hit hard by Eta and about 40,000 people are still in shelters across the country.

In Nicaragua relief agencies began to evacuate some indigenous communities from the Coco River, on the border with Honduras, which could be affected by heavy rains and floods due to the storm.

"We are asking you to calmly prepare" for the hurricane that "threatens to cause floods and disasters," Rose Cunnigham, the mayor of Waspam, on the border with Honduras, urged the community over a local radio station.

Waspam authorities on Friday sent boats to evacuate the community in Cabo Gracias a Dios, the cape where the Coco River flows into the Caribbean along the "Mosquito Coast", and buses to transport people from the village of Bihmuna.

Guatemala's disaster management agency CONRED meanwhile called on residents in the country's most threatened areas in the north and northeast to voluntarily evacuate to shelters. It also recommended avoiding waterways and other risky areas.

"Our ground is already oversaturated," said Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei.

"So it's to be expected that we will have more farming and infrastructure damage," he warned after meeting his Honduran counterpart, Juan Orlando Hernandez, in Guatemala City.

Eta hit the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua as a Category 4 storm and was one of the strongest November storms ever recorded.

Warmer seas caused by climate change are making hurricanes stronger for longer after landfall, increasing the destruction they can wreak, scientists say.

Guatemala's Giammattei on Friday accused industrialized nations of being responsible for the catastrophes caused by climate change that are ravaging the area.

"Central America is one of the regions where climate change is felt the most," he told reporters.

The region is hit by "catastrophic floods, extreme droughts and the greatest poverty" but nonetheless receives "the least help on behalf of these industrialized nations", he said.

This year's hurricane season has seen a record 30 named tropical storms wreak havoc across the southeastern United States, the Caribbean and Central America.

The NHC was even forced to switch to the Greek alphabet after 2020's storms exhausted its list of Latin names.

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Death toll in typhoon-hit Philippines rises to 14
Manila (AFP) Nov 13, 2020
The death toll in the typhoon-battered Philippines has risen to 14, an official said Friday, after some of the worst flooding in years swamped villages and forced thousands to flee their homes. Torrential rain dumped by Typhoon Vamco - the third powerful storm to hit the country in as many weeks - inundated low-lying areas of Manila and surrounding provinces, trapping people on rooftops and balconies. As floodwaters receded and residents began to return home, the scale of the destruction left ... read more