Over 100 ethnic minority residents in Vietnam have been forced to evacuate from Typhoon Kirogi after they refused to comply with voluntary evacuation orders.

Typhoon Kirogi, the 14^th to hit the country this year, has weakened to a tropical depression after reaching the sea area off Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan Provinces, packing winds of between 40 and 60km per hour.

The climatic event is forecast to sweep through the south-central region on Sunday afternoon.

As tens of thousands had been evacuated to safety as of 9:30 pm on Saturday to brace for the storm, over 100 people of ethnic minority backgrounds in Khanh Hoa’s Cam Ranh City ignored evacuation orders and insisted on staying behind.

Living in poorly fortified houses, they were particularly prone to suffer heavy damage from the storm’s impact, according to Nguyen Huu Dung, chairman of Cam Ranh.

“I gave orders to local authorities and armed forces to persuade the residents to evacuate, and to enforce mandatory evacuation for their own safety if they still refused to comply by 10:30 pm on Saturday,” Dung said.

According to the chairman, around 50 tourists were still trapped on the city’s Binh Hung Island as of Saturday evening, as it was dangerous to attempt to cross the ocean in high waves during the storm.

“There are fortified hotels and houses on the island, so it would be safer for the tourists to stay there until the storm clears,” Dung explained.

All 145 tourists on Cam Ranh’s Binh Ba Island had been ferried back to land by Saturday afternoon before the storm came, he added.

Farmers at hundreds of coastal fish farms in Cam Ranh had also been ordered to evacuate, and officers had been dispatched to guard the locations to prevent any attempts to return.

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