Hundred of thousands of people in central provinces face the risk of infectious diseases and schools are still closed one week after typhoon Ketsana wreaked havoc in the region.

Diarrhoea, flu, pink eyes and skin diseases are increasing and it is feared they may spread in the contaminated and unsanitary conditions with a shortage of clean water.

Quang Nam province Prevention Medicine Centre’s statistics show there are 335 people with diarrhoea, 1,300 with pink eyes, 4,200 with flu and 23,000 with skin diseases.

In Da Nang city, public and private health clinics in Hoa Vang, Cam Le, Lien Chieu, and Ngu Hanh Son districts are overloaded with hundreds of cases of diseases.

Doctor Le Thi Thanh Xuan, from Da Nang city’s General Hospital , said the number of hospitalised for infectious diseases had reached 300 a day, 10 times higher than usual.

The diseases threaten tens of thousands of households in Hue city where 98 percent of wells have been contaminated due to flooding.

Provincial authorities have sent doctors and health workers to storm-hit localities and supplied medicine for health centres plus Chloramin B to sterilise the wells.

More than 10,000 pupils have been hit by the closure of 15 schools in Quang Ngai province, according to the provincial Department of Education and Training.

“Most of chairs and tables of these schools were swept away and books and notebooks damaged,” said department director Thai Van Dong. “Many poor pupils are unable to afford new learning aids to come back to school.”

The Ministry of Education and Training has worked out measures to help pupils get back to school as soon as possible, to support pupils in flood-hit areas and to work with education and training departments in the restoration process.

The ministry is also working with the Vietnam Education Publishing House and foreign organisations to replace school books.

Meanwhile, those who live in affected areas are now confronted with rising prices for neccesities.

Prices of vegetables sold at 10,000 VND (0.5 USD) a bunch because crops in the areas have been destroyed.

In low lying areas which are still flooded, the demand for clean water has pushed the cost up to 18,000 VND (1 USD) per 21L bottle.

In other central province, Quang Nam , villages have turned into desert as floods left behind sand.

One week after Tropical Storm Ketsana cut a swathe through the region, 70 houses in a village in Quang Nam province are almost completely buried in sand left behind by the floods.

“That night (September 29), villagers ran helter-skelter on hearing the flood’s roar,” said Van Ba Ly, head of Dai My village.

“They left their houses, carried their children, and took refuge up the mountain. They returned the following day and found the village had turned into a dazzling white sand plain.”

Around 90 percent of the houses were buried under two metres of sand.

Not only houses, but also schools are buried under the sand, and the village’s hundreds of students cannot go to school yet. “Where are the books for them to go to school ?” asked Ly./.