Boats will be banned from going to sea in Thanh Hoa Province from August 28
Residents have been banned from going to the sea starting from 5 am on August 29 until the storm weakens. The authorities will send employees to help harvest the crops and review the number of households living in danger zones.
As of August 28, there were 3,839 vessels working offshore and contact has been lost with three vessels.
According to the National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting, Storm Podul will move to the west at the speed of 25km/h and will keep strengthening in the next 24 hours. On August 30, it will be 300km from Nghe An Province.
Nghe An authorities have also banned residents from going out to sea and are ready to evacuate 26,000 people if necessary. Fisheries Departments also informed farmers about the storm so they can take preventive measures. There are 960 cages in fish farms, covering nearly 17,000 hectares of water surface in Nghe An.
Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung ordered disaster prevention and search and rescue committees to closely monitor the situation since Podul is a huge storm that will occur during the national holiday.
The residents in Quang Tri Province are also in a hurry to harvest their crops as the storm approaches. Many people are staying overnight in their fields in order to harvest all of the crops in time.
"If we don't harvest it now, we'll suffer huge damage from the storm. All of our effort and money will be lost. It's better to work hard now," said Le An.
Nearly 5,000 hectares of rice in Quang Tri still needs to be harvested.