AFP UK

Wind billows against palm trees as Hurricane Ian, a massive and powerful Category 4 storm, nears Charlotte Harbor, Florida

Heavy winds and rain pummelled Florida on Wednesday as Hurricane Ian intensified to just shy of the strongest Category 5 level, threatening to wreak “catastrophic” destruction on the southern US state.

Forecasters warned of a looming once-in-a-generation calamity, with life-threatening storm surges, extensive flooding and devastating winds promising what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called a “nasty” natural disaster.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest advisory that the “extremely dangerous eyewall of Ian (was) moving onshore” and bringing sustained winds of 155 miles (250 kilometers) per hour, just two mph shy of Category 5 intensity — the strongest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Some 2.5 million people were under mandatory evacuation orders in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with voluntary evacuation recommended in several others.

With the golden hour to flee having past — and hurricane force winds nearly touching southwestern Florida — authorities were advising residents to hunker down and stay indoors.

“Ian has strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,” the NHC said, warning of “catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding.”

Airports in Tampa and Orlando stopped all commercial flights, and some 337,000 households were already without power.

“This is going to be a nasty, nasty day, two days,” DeSantis said.

“It could make landfall as a Category 5, but clearly this is a very powerful major hurricane that’s going to have major impacts.”

With conditions rapidly deteriorating, some thrill-seekers were seen walking in the mud flats of Tampa Bay and in Charlotte Harbor, further south, ahead of Ian’s arrival.

The storm was expected to roar ashore in the coming hours near Fort Myers and Port Charlotte, along the state’s west coast, before moving across central Florida and emerging in the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday.

With up to two feet (61 centimeters) of rain expected to fall on parts of the so-called Sunshine State, and a storm surge that could reach devastating levels of 12 to 18 feet (3.6 to 5.5 meters) above ground, authorities were warning of dire emergency conditions.

“This is a life-threatening situation,” the NHC warned.

– Widespread blackout –

Ian a day earlier had plunged all of Cuba into darkness after battering the country’s west as a Category 3 for more than five hours before moving back out over the Gulf of Mexico.

The storm damaged Cuba’s power network and left the island “without electrical service,” state electricity company Union Electrica said.

Only the few people with gasoline-powered generators had electricity on the island of more than 11 million people.

Others had to make do with flashlights or candles at home, and lit their way with cell phones as they walked the streets.

“Desolation and destruction. These are terrifying hours. Nothing is left here,” a 70-year-old resident of the western city of Pinar del Rio was quoted as saying in a social media post by his journalist son, Lazaro Manuel Alonso.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, Cuban state media reported.

– ‘Historic event’ –

In the United States, the Pentagon said 3,200 national guardsmen had been called up in Florida, with another 1,800 on the way.

FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) administrator Deanne Criswell warned that Ian’s “painful impacts” were being felt even before the hurricane’s landfall.

National Weather Service director Ken Graham echoed concerns about what lies ahead, expressing certainty Ian will leave a trail of destruction.

“This is going to be a storm we talk about for many years to come,” he said. “It’s a historic event.”

As climate change warms the ocean’s surface, the number of powerful tropical storms, or cyclones, with stronger winds and more precipitation is likely to increase. 

The total number of cyclones, however, may not.

According to Gary Lackmann, a professor of atmospheric science at North Carolina State University, studies have also detected a “potential link” between climate change and what is known as rapid intensification — when a relatively weak tropical storm surges to a Category 3 hurricane or higher in a 24-hour period, as happened with Ian.

“There remains a consensus that there will be fewer storms, but that the strongest will get stronger,” Lackmann told AFP.

Fish fossils dating back 440 million years are helping to "fill some of the key gaps" on how humans evolved from fish, researchers said

Fish fossils dating back 440 million years are helping to “fill some of the key gaps” on how humans evolved from fish, researchers said on Wednesday.

Two fossil deposits of ancient fish in Guizhou, southern China, and Chongqing in the southwest were discovered by scientists during a field study in 2019.

The fossils “help to trace many human body structures back to ancient fishes, some 440 million years ago, and fill some key gaps in the evolution of ‘from fish to human,'” researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said.

Their findings, which they said “provide further iron evidence to the evolutionary path”, were published in four papers in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

The Chongqing fossil deposit includes a fish — known as acanthodians — with bony armour around its fins and is considered the ancestor of creatures with jaws and a backbone, including humans.

Scientists in 2013 said they had found a 419-million-year-old fish fossil in China that disproved the long-held theory that modern animals with bony skeletons (osteichthyans) evolved from a shark-like creature with a frame made of cartilage.

The newly discovered creature, dubbed Fanjingshania, predates this ancient fish fossil by about 15 million years, the study said.

“This is the oldest jawed fish with known anatomy,” lead researcher Zhu Min said. 

“The new data allowed us to… gain much needed information about the evolutionary steps leading to the origin of important vertebrate adaptations such as jaws, sensory systems, and paired appendages (limbs).”

The Chongqing fossils are also the world’s only fossils dating back nearly 440 million years which “preserves complete, head-to-tail jawed fishes”, offering a rare peek into a time period regarded as the “dawn of fishes”, the statement said.

“It’s really an awesome, game-changing set of fossil discoveries,” said John Long, the former president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology who is currently with Australia’s Flinders University.

“It rewrites almost everything we know about the early history of jawed animal evolution.” 

A search team retrieved the body of top US ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson from the Himalayas on Wednesday, two days after she disappeared on the slopes of Nepal's Manaslu peak

The body of top US ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson was retrieved from the Himalayas by a search team on Wednesday, two days after she disappeared on the slopes of Nepal’s Manaslu peak.

Nelson slipped and went missing while skiing down the world’s eighth-highest mountain after a successful summit with her partner Jim Morrison on Monday. 

Morrison led the search operations and found her body Wednesday morning, after landing at an elevation of around 6,700 metres (22,000 feet) on a helicopter.

“I skied first and after a few turns Hilaree followed and started a small avalanche. She was swept off her feet and carried down a narrow snow slope down the south side (opposite from climbing route) of the mountain,” Morrison posted on his Instagram, describing what happened after their summit.  

Morrison was able to reach the base camp safely, but bad weather hampered the desperate search operation on Monday and Tuesday. 

“I’m in Kathmandu with her and her spirit. My loss is indescribable and I am focused on her children and their steps forward. @hilareenelson is the most inspiring person in life and now her energy will guide our collective souls,” he wrote. 

“I’m devastated by the loss of her.”

Nelson, 49, is described by her sponsor, The North Face, as “the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation”.

A decade ago, she became the first woman to summit both the highest mountain in the world, Everest, and the adjacent Lhotse peak within the span of 24 hours.

She returned to Lhotse and made the first ski descent of the mountain in 2018, which earned her the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award.

In an Instagram post last week, Nelson said her latest climb had been deeply challenging because of “incessant rain” and dangerous conditions.

“I haven’t felt as sure-footed on Manaslu as I have on past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalaya,” Nelson wrote in a post on Thursday.

“These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways.”

-‘Her legacy’ –

Mountaineers and well-wishers have shared heartfelt messages for Nelson since she went missing.

“Let’s pray for Hilaree,” fellow The North Face athlete Fernanda Maciel, currently at the Manaslu base camp, wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.

Mountain guide Caroline George thanked Nelson for inspiring her own adventures. 

“She is a beacon… I have infinite gratitude for her journey on this planet and for the legacy she leaves,” she wrote.

Constant rain and snow have been a challenge for the 404 paying climbers attempting to reach the summit of Manaslu this year.

On the same day as Nelson’s accident, an avalanche hit between Camps 3 and 4 on the 8,163-metre (26,781-foot) mountain, killing Nepali climber Anup Rai and injuring a dozen others who were later rescued.

The deaths of Nelson and Rai are the first confirmed casualties of the autumn climbing season in Nepal.

Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks and foreign climbers who flock to its mountains are a major source of revenue for the country.

The industry was almost completely shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, but the country reopened its peaks to mountaineers last year.

A carer helps an elderly resident – one of three alzheimer sufferers in the establishment- in a house at L'Hay-les- Roses on the outskirts of Paris

Experts on Wednesday said they were encouraged after preliminary data for a new Alzheimer’s drug showed it slowed cognitive decline, the first medicine to accomplish this goal.

The treatment, called lecanemab, was tested in a clinical trial of nearly 1,800 people, and slowed cognitive decline by 27 percent across an 18-month period, according to early results announced by makers Biogen and Eisai.

“This is the first drug that’s been shown to not only remove the build-up of a protein called amyloid in the brain, but to have a small but statistically significant impact on cognitive decline in people with early-stage disease,” said Susan Kohlhaas of Alzheimer’s UK.

But experts cautioned their comments were tempered by the preliminary nature of the results, which were announced by press release ahead of publication in a peer-reviewed journal, as the companies look to bring the treatment to market as early as January 2023 in the United States.

Biogen previously brought another Alzheimer’s drug to market called Aduhelm, but there was significant controversy over the evidence it worked, and its approval led to three high-level resignations in the US Food and Drug Administration.

According to a statement by Biogen and Eisai, in addition to slowing cognitive decline, the new treatment also slowed build-up in the brain of the protein amyloid, which forms sticky plaques and kills brain cells.

Side effects included higher rates of swelling and bleeding in the brain in the group that received the treatment compared to the group that received a placebo.

Both treatment and placebo groups had people of similar characteristics, including a broad range of underlying conditions. A quarter were either Hispanic or African American.

Michel Vounatsos, CEO of Biogen, said the announcement “gives patients and their families hope that lecanemab, if approved, can potentially slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Masud Husain, a professor of neurology at the University of Oxford, said in a statement: “While the summary of the results certainly seems very encouraging, we have to be cautious until we are allowed to review the data fully. 

“It is also important to bear in mind that the trial results apply only to people with mild Alzheimer’s disease, not everyone with the condition, and that there were important side effects of the drug, including bleeds in the brain.”

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve straddles Guinea's borders with Liberia and Ivory Coast

Guinea’s oldest chimpanzee and one of the last members of a globally famous endangered community has died in solitude around the age of 71, the environment ministry said.

Fana, a female chimp born around 1951, was part of a troop that gained global fame for uncanny abilities to use tools.

The tiny community of apes lives in a forest around the village of Bossou, in the far southeastern corner of the country.

Scientists have trekked to the remote location for decades to study the chimps’ remarkable use of stone hammers and anvils to crack open nuts — the most sophisticated act ever observed of humanity’s genetically closest relative.

But Fana’s death brings the number of Bossou chimpanzees down to just six or seven.

Half are females, though two are no longer able to reproduce.

Fana had been showing signs of exhaustion over the past few months, the environment ministry said on Facebook Tuesday. 

Her left upper limb has been paralysed since she took a bad fall nearly 25 years ago and she had long since stopped climbing trees. 

She lived alone as she became less mobile.

Her body was found on September 19 and she was buried the next day in the presence of local villagers.

The Bossou apes have a unique relationship with the village population.

The great apes live in the wild but share the territory and its resources with the locals, who protect them, believing them to be reincarnated ancestors.

Up until 2003, the Bossou chimp group had been relatively stable at around 21 animals. But it lost seven members to the flu that year.

It has also been affected by human activities in the area. 

Locals traditionally use slash-and-burn agriculture, and though they had preserved a 320-hectare block of forest around Bossou, surrounding deforestation has cut it off from the rest of the Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, where there are more numerous chimp communities.

Slash-and-burn agriculture sees people cultivate lands until they become depleted, then clear forests to create new lands, and repeat the cycle.

The UNESCO World Heritage-listed reserve straddles Guinea’s borders with Liberia and Ivory Coast.

Fana leaves behind two sons, Foaf and Fanwa. She is predeceased by her daughter, Fotayou.

Cuba's National Capitol building is seen during a blackout in Havana on September 27, 2022 after the entire island was left in the dark when Hurricane Ian damaged the electrical grid

Havana resident Maykel was helping his friend fix an “almendron” — as the decades-old American cars that ply Cuba’s streets are known — when the lights suddenly cut out late Tuesday.

He and his friend were among the 11 million Cubans plunged into darkness after powerful Hurricane Ian tore across the island’s west, damaging the electrical grid and causing a nationwide blackout.

“What are we going to do?” Maykel, 35, said dryly. “Survive.”

Lazaro Guerra, technical director of the state utility Union Electrica, said in televised remarks that there was no electric service “in any part of the country.” 

The energy ministry noted it was dealing with “exceptional circumstances” and that power would be restored gradually.

Communist-ruled Cuba had already been dealing with electricity generation issues stemming from the obsolescence of its plants, breakdowns and maintenance, and heightened demand thanks to the summer heat.

Guerra said the latest problems were affecting the lines linking the country’s west, center and east, and that fluctuations in the charge and electrical frequency were causing instability.

“The western region has the additional complication of having a group of transmission lines that are out of service precisely because of the passing of Hurricane Ian,” he said.

The storm, which hit the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa and Havana, toppled trees into roadways and fuelled heavy ocean swells that inundated streets around the capital’s popular Malecon promenade.

State media reported that two people were killed Tuesday in Pinar del Rio.

– Completely in the dark –

Harold Baez, a 27-year-old security guard for the half-century-old Coppelia ice cream parlour in the heart of Havana, said he was concerned about the situation but determined to carry on.

“A (nationwide) blackout like that always generates uncertainty, but that’s normal. You have to overcome everything,” he said as he headed for the cafeteria of the Habana Libre hotel which, like many accommodations aimed at international tourists, still enjoyed power thanks to generators.

In Cuba, few homes have gasoline-powered generators, though hospitals, offices and public institutions often do.

Some homes were lit up with candles or rechargeable lamps.

But without streetlights or even traffic signals to illuminate their neighborhoods, many of those living in central Havana found themselves completely in the dark.

“We came out because of the child… because he was going crazy” crying, said one woman who declined to be named as she soothed her baby by the light of her husband’s cell phone.

Restaurant worker Yoelmis Martinez, 36, sought to put an optimistic spin on the situation.

“It isn’t that (we want) it to turn out like this, but… the positive part is that at least we can save a fair bit during this blackout,” Martinez said as she returned home from a friend’s house where she rode out the storm.

The message "Go Away Hurricane Ian" is displayed outside a condominium complex in St. Pete Beach near the city of St. Petersburg

Hurricane Ian intensified to just shy of catastrophic Category 5 strength Wednesday as its heavy winds began pummelling the US state of Florida, with forecasters warning of life-threatening storm surges after leaving millions without power in Cuba.

Mandatory evacuation orders had been issued in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with voluntary evacuation recommended in several others, according to the state’s emergency officials as they girded for a potentially historic storm.

In a pre-dawn advisory the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said “Ian has strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,” warning later of “catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding.”

At 7:00 am (1100 GMT) it said “data from a Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that maximum sustained winds have increased to near 155 miles (250 kilometers) per hour” — just shy of Category 5, the strongest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

“This is going to be a nasty, nasty day, two days,” Governor Ron DeSantis said early Wednesday as he warned residents of a “rough stretch” ahead for Florida.

“It could make landfall as a Category 5, but clearly this is a very powerful major hurricane that’s going to have major impacts, both on… southwest Florida but as it continues to work through the state.”

The NHC for its part said Ian was “rapidly intensifying,” while conditions along the Florida coast were “rapidly deteriorating.”

Tropical storm-strength winds were already battering the Florida Keys, as the storm was expected to make landfall later Wednesday near Fort Myers and Port Charlotte, along the state’s west coast, before moving across central Florida and emerging in the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday.

With up to two feet (61 centimeters) of rain expected to fall on parts of the so-called Sunshine State, and a storm surge that could reach devastating levels of 12 to 16 feet (3.6 to 4.9 meters) above ground, authorities were warning of catastrophic conditions.

“This is a life-threatening situation,” the NHC warned.

DeSantis said on Tuesday night that there had already been at least two “radar-indicated tornadoes” in the state, and warned those in areas projected to be hit hardest that their “time to evacuate is coming to an end.”

Calls to heed evacuation warnings were echoed by US President Joe Biden, who earlier said Ian “could be a very severe hurricane, life-threatening and devastating in its impact.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden had spoken with DeSantis — a potential 2024 election challenger — Tuesday evening to discuss storm preparations.

– Widespread blackout –

Ian plunged all of Cuba into darkness on Tuesday after battering the country’s west as a Category 3 for more than five hours before moving back out over the Gulf of Mexico, the Insmet meteorological institute said.

The storm damaged Cuba’s power network and left the island “without electrical service,” state electricity company Union Electrica said.

Only the few people with gasoline-powered generators had access to electricity on the island of more than 11 million people. Others had to make do with flashlights or candles at home, and lit their way with cell phones as they walked the streets.

In the western city of Pinar del Rio, AFP footage showed downed power lines, flooded streets and damaged rooftops.

“Desolation and destruction. These are terrifying hours. Nothing is left here,” a 70-year-old resident of the city was quoted as saying in a social media post by his journalist son, Lazaro Manuel Alonso.

About 40,000 people were evacuated across Pinar del Rio province, which bore the brunt of the storm, local authorities said.

Cuban residents described “destruction” and posted images on social media of flooded streets and felled trees.

At least two people died in Pinar del Rio province, Cuban state media reported.

In Consolacion del Sur, southwest of Havana, 65-year-old Caridad Fernandez said her roof was seriously damaged and water came through her front door.

“Everything we have is damaged,” she said. “But we’ll get through this, we’ll just keep moving forwards.”

– ‘Life and death’ –

In the US, the Pentagon said 3,200 national guardsmen had been called up in Florida, with another 1,800 on the way.

Authorities in several municipalities were distributing sandbags to help residents protect their homes from flooding.

Tampa International Airport suspended operations from Tuesday at 5 pm.

NASA, on the state’s east coast, also took precautions, rolling back its massive Moon rocket into a storage hanger for protection.

Like DeSantis, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell highlighted the danger of storm surge, saying it was the agency’s “biggest concern.”

“If people are told to evacuate by their local officials, please listen to them. The decision you choose to make may be the difference between life and death,” she said.

A search team retrieved the body of top US ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson from the Himalayas on Wednesday, two days after she disappeared on the slopes of Nepal's Manaslu peak

The body of top US ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson was retrieved from the Himalayas by a search team on Wednesday, two days after she disappeared on the slopes of Nepal’s Manaslu peak.

Nelson slipped and went missing while skiing down the world’s eighth-highest mountain after a successful summit with her partner Jim Morrison on Monday. 

Morrison led the search operations and had left Wednesday morning on a helicopter to resume efforts to locate her at an elevation of around 6,200 metres (20,000 feet).

“They returned to the same area and found her body. They have now flown to Kathmandu,” Jiban Ghimire of Shangri-La Nepal Trek, which organised the expedition, told AFP.

Nelson, 49, is described by her sponsor, The North Face, as “the most prolific ski mountaineer of her generation”.

A decade ago, she became the first woman to summit both the highest mountain in the world, Everest, and the adjacent Lhotse peak within the span of 24 hours.

She returned to Lhotse and made the first ski descent of the mountain in 2018, which earned her the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award.

In an Instagram post last week, Nelson said her latest climb had been deeply challenging because of “incessant rain” and dangerous conditions.

“I haven’t felt as sure-footed on Manaslu as I have on past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalaya,” Nelson wrote in a post on Thursday.

“These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways.”

-‘Her legacy’ –

Mountaineers and well-wishers have shared heartfelt messages for Nelson since she went missing.

“Let’s pray for Hilaree,” fellow The North Face athlete Fernanda Maciel, currently at the Manaslu base camp, wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.

Mountain guide Caroline George thanked Nelson for inspiring her own adventures. 

“She is a beacon… I have infinite gratitude for her journey on this planet and for the legacy she leaves,” she wrote.

Constant rain and snow have been a challenge for the 404 paying climbers attempting to reach the summit of Manaslu this year.

On the same day as Nelson’s accident, an avalanche hit between Camps 3 and 4 on the 8,163-metre (26,781-foot) mountain, killing Nepali climber Anup Rai and injuring a dozen others who were later rescued.

The deaths of Nelson and Rai are the first confirmed casualties of the autumn climbing season in Nepal.

Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks and foreign climbers who flock to its mountains are a major source of revenue for the country.

The industry was almost completely shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, but the country reopened its peaks to mountaineers last year.

Migratory birds are some of the most threatened

Almost half of all bird species are in decline globally and one in eight are threatened with extinction, according to a major new report warning that human actions are driving more species to the brink and nature is “in trouble”.

The four-yearly State of the World’s Birds report, which provides a snapshot of the plight of species globally and more broadly a barometer for biodiversity, comes as the United Nations steers an international process to protect nature.

“One in eight bird species is threatened with extinction, and the status of the world’s birds continues to deteriorate: species are moving ever faster towards extinction,” said the report released this week by BirdLife International. 

Using data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the report said 49 percent of bird species worldwide have declining populations, with populations falling even in species not normally rare or at risk. 

Roughly 13 percent are considered threatened. 

The main threats include the growth of unsustainable agriculture, logging, invasive species, over-exploitation and climate change. 

Most bird populations face a combination of human-caused threats.   

“The natural world is in trouble. Human actions are driving species rapidly towards extinction, undermining ecosystem functions and services vital to our own survival,” the report said.  

BirdLife International, which has decades of survey data, said there are now 2.9 billion fewer individual birds in North America than there were in 1970, an estimated drop of 29 percent. 

The European Union has seen a net loss of around 600 million birds, roughly 18 percent since 1980.  

In both cases, the losses are most acute among long-distance migrants and farmland birds.

Birdlife said many key bird preservation zones were in a poor state and called for a global push to protect and restore habitats. 

In December, nations gather to finalise a treaty to halt the decline of biodiversity and set humanity on a path to “live in harmony with nature” by mid-century.

BirdLife International chief Patricia Zurita said the framework under negotiation was “the world’s best and perhaps last chance to halt the loss of nature” and restore biodiversity. 

“The birds and the rest of nature are depending on us. And we are depending on them,” she said.

Forecasters had predicted the storm would be one of the biggest to ever hit Vietnam

Typhoon Noru tore roofs from homes and caused power outages across central Vietnam Wednesday, with hundreds of thousands of people taking refuge, after the storm claimed at least 10 lives in the Philippines.

In Danang, Vietnam’s third-largest city, high-rise buildings shook as the typhoon made landfall in the early hours of Wednesday, bringing winds of up to around 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, according to the national forecaster.

More than 300,000 people in Vietnam hunkered down in shelters overnight after experts predicted the storm would be one of the biggest to ever hit the country.

By Wednesday evening, it weakened to a tropical storm as it crossed into southern Laos, but forecasters in Vietnam warned of landslides and serious flooding in the typhoon’s wake.

The defence ministry has mobilised around 40,000 soldiers and 200,000 militia members, equipped with armoured vehicles and boats in preparation for rescue and relief operations, state media said.

In the tourist city of Hoi An, the Hoai River was close to bursting its banks, while the ground was littered with metal roof sheeting and fallen trees that had damaged cars and blocked roads.

Several streets in the old town were under water.

“The typhoon was terrible last night. I could not sleep as the wind was so strong and loud,” resident Nguyen Thi Hien told AFP.

Around 300 houses in the coastal province of Quang Tri had their roofs blown off on Tuesday as the wind began picking up speed.

“I heard the sound of fallen trees and signboards outside. I was scared. But we were prepared so luckily the losses were not that bad.”

Residents rushed to clean up the debris early on Wednesday, with some shops already open and tourists walking the streets, taking pictures of the floodwater.

Reshma D’Souza, from India, spent a frightening night in her hotel room. At around 1 am, she said, she saw that the “wall was vibrating”.

“(It was) shaking, so I was just praying and I was so scared.”

Airports and offices across central provinces began to reopen on Wednesday afternoon.

But key sections of the highway linking Hanoi in the north with commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City in the south remained closed due to landslides and floods, according to state media.

– Deaths in Philippines –

Noru hit Vietnam after slamming into the Philippines earlier this week as a super typhoon with winds of up to 195 kph, leaving 10 dead and eight missing, the civil defence office said.

In Laos, authorities ordered a close watch on dams and urged people to seek shelter for themselves and for livestock.

Noru is then expected to move over Thailand’s northeastern Ubon Ratchathani province on Thursday, gradually weakening into a tropical depression.

Thai authorities warned of heavy rain and possible flash flooding, saying people living in high-risk areas should prepare to evacuate their homes.

In Cambodia, officials warned residents in low-lying areas already hit by heavy rains in recent days to be alert to the danger of flash floods. 

Vietnam is frequently lashed by heavy storms in the rainy season between June and November, with central coastal provinces the worst affected.

Scientists have warned the storms are becoming more powerful as the world gets warmer because of climate change.

burs-pdw/dhc