After leaving 39 people dead in the Philippines and 2 in China, while displacing tens of thousands others from their homes, typhoon Conson continued to head for Vietnam on Saturday. Learning of the damage caused to its neighboring countries, Vietnam braced for Conson’s arrival.

However, the typhoon weakened to a tropical storm after moving past China’s smallest province, Hainan. Heavy rains and wind stretched to Vietnam, reaching the coastal provinces and causing sea waves to rise up to 16 feet on the coastlines of Nam Dinh province. As a precaution, tourists and locals who gathered on the beaches of Hai Phong to watch the elevated waves were dispersed by the Vietnamese police.

Just nearby, the National army evacuated around 150,000 residents along Ha Long Bay as the storm is earlier predicted to brush the area. At the same time, fishing boats afloat the South China Sea were called back to port while scheduled tours to Halong Bay and nearby coastal areas were cancelled for the entire weekend. Vietnam Airlines, likewise, cancelled several of its flights in and out of Haiphong, including flights to and from Myanmar's Yangon. The Vietnamese government warned that flash floods and landslides are pertinent as mountainous areas went through a prolonged dry period, banking up dried soil in the area.

In the Philippines, where much of the typhoon’s battery is evident, 47 people remain missing and about 8,900 residents are currently housed by the government in several evacuation centers. After hitting China on Friday evening, wrecked billboards caused the death of two locals. In Sanya, a resort city on the southern tip of Hainan, a security guard was buried by a billboard blown off by strong winds. I
In a separate incident, a motorcyclist died after being trapped by another falling billboard.

Trees were uprooted and light poles were toppled, causing power supplies in some areas to cut off. With that, ferries from Hainan to the mainland were suspended, stranding hundreds of travelers. Many more shipping services and flights from Hainan and other coastal province of Guangdong were forced to be halted since late Thursday. About 35.5 million people across southern China have been affected by the downpours, with more than 1.2 million now in relocation areas.

With bad weather regularly hitting countries across Southeast Asia, particularly Philippines, China, Taiwan and Japan beginning the second half of the year, looks like more precautions should be considered before similar wreckage could hit the region again.