Tropical Storm Parma heading towards China and Vietnam

After ravenging the Philippines, Tropical Storm Parma is now heading for China's Hainan Island and will continue on to the northern and central provinces of Vietnam. These are areas that have been hit by sveral other storms throughout this season and have experienced significant rain and flooding and a result.

China issues alert on approaching typhoon Parma (Xinhua)

China's central observatory issued an alert Sunday morning on typhoon Parma, which was expected to make a landing on southern China Monday or Tuesday.

As of 5 a.m. Sunday, the eye of Parma was located at 500 kilometers southeast off Wanning city in Hainan Province, packing winds up to 64.8 km per hour, the observatory said.

Parma, which has left at least 299 dead in the Philippines, would continue moving northwestward at 15 km per hour and was expected to land at south China's coastal areas along Lingshui in Hainan and Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province Monday night or Tuesday morning, it said.

Parma currently has sustained winds of 45 MPH with gusts of 55 MPH. The current projections are that Parma will hit Hainan with tropical storm force winds and then degrade to a tropical depression.

Storm Parma downgrades, causes rough seas (VOV News)

Even though tropical storm Parma is forecast to weaken into a tropical depression in the next 24 hours, it will still cause rough seas and dump heavy rains on central coastal provinces.

The National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Centre reported that at 13.00 on October 11, the storm was positioned at 17.7 degrees north latitude and 113.5 degrees east longitude, about 220 km northeast of Hoang Sa archipelago. It was packing winds of between 62-74 km per hour near its centre.

In the next 24 hours, the storm will move west and north-west at a speed of 15-20km and is expected to downgrade to a tropical depression. However, the centre warned central coastal provinces about torrential rains and rough seas in the evening of October 11.