Vietnam:
November 26, 04

Drought-stricken central Vietnam issued a flood alert as rains triggered by an approaching typhoon, Muifa, swelled rivers and swept away at least one person, officials said on Thursday.

Rains started this week in the central region, bringing relief to rice farmers who had faced drought since September.

"The province has issued a high flood alert as upstream waters are pouring in. We are now on 24-hour guard," said a disaster management official from the coastal province of Quang Ngai.

A 31-year-old man died when he was swept away on Tuesday in the province, the official said. The typhoon destroyed 200 houses in the southern region where one sailor was reported missing after the boat he was on capsized in the storm, state media said on Thursday. The flood alert covered four provinces.

Low-lying areas in Thua Thien Hue province were inundated. Trucks climbing a pass on the north-south Highway One stalled in the rain, snarling traffic, television reported.

The typhoon, downgraded to a tropical storm, had shifted away from Vietnam into the Gulf of Thailand by Thursday. The central region incorporating the Central Highlands coffee belt is not a key area for rice.

Vietnam is the world's second biggest exporter of the grain after Thailand, and the largest producer of robusta coffee.

The agriculture ministry put drought damage at $36.8 million, mainly of rice, corn and cotton in the central provinces and the Central Highlands.

Vietnam is normally hit by seven to eight tropical storms a year which trigger flash floods in the central region. In October and November last year nearly 100 people were killed in floods.

India Monsoon Seen Improving, But Concerns Persist

Indian weather officials said on Thursday monsoon rains were likely to cover the dry rice and oilseed-growing states in the next few days but a research agency forecast below normal showers raising concerns about farm growth.

India's June-September monsoon rains, the lifeline of the farm sector, have been scanty in some key growing regions so far this season, leading to worries about growth in the farm-dependent economy.

While torrential rains have triggered monsoon flooding in some parts of India, analysts said a drought-like situation was developing in some pockets where rainfall so far has been much lower than 2003, when the country had its best rains in a decade.

"It is a positive situation now and things are improving," a senior weather official told Reuters.

"There is a low pressure over the Bay of Bengal and when this system moves inland the monsoon will move towards the northwesterly direction and we expect good rains in the two days over the central and western regions."

The central and western regions grow mainly rice, cotton, oilseeds and sugarcane in the winter season for which sowing takes place during the monsoon months of June and July.

Rains in these regions have so far been deficient, afffecting sowing of oilseeds and cotton as well as rice and sugarcane plantings.

Traders say these areas need an immediate second spell of rains to save the standing crops and accelerate sowing operations.

Most regions had a first spell of rains in June but since then have remained largely dry.

However, a state-run research agency said monsoon rains between June and August were expected to be 3 percent below normal for the country as a whole, and would be about 11 percent lower in the northern region.

"In July, north India is expected to get rains about 15 percent below normal," said P. Goswami, a scientist with the CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation. "But the situation in August is going to be even worse as the total rainfall is seen more than 20 percent below normal.

Senior government officials met this week to assess the situation after subdued rains over most parts of India in the last three weeks raised concerns in the agriculture ministry on the impact on farm output.

Government officials have ruled out the possibility of a drought similar to 2002, saying there was no cause for panic although various ministries had been asked to be on alert.

In July 2002, the country received just half of the long-term average rains, hitting domestic crops and dragging economic growth for 2002/03 (April-March) to 4.0 percent from 5.6 percent a year earlier.

Agriculture accounts for about 22 percent of India's GDP and supports 60 percent of its billion people.