Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has ordered ministries and authorities, especially along the central coast, to prepare for mass evacuations and to keep ships in port and tell those at sea to seek shelter.

Dung also deployed deputy premier Nguyen Sinh Hung to the central region to oversee the preparations, the state-run Vietnam News Agency said.

Typhoon Utor, packing maximum winds of 120 kilometres (74 miles) per hour early Monday, was barreling across the South China Sea after leaving at least seven people dead or missing in the Philippines.

Manila said Utor was the reason it postponed two summits on the central island of Cebu in the first half of the week, although other sources said the real reason may have been a terrorist threat.

Forecasters in Vietnam said Monday it was too early to tell whether the typhoon would make landfall in Vietnam, lose strength or hit elsewhere.

Severe tropical storm Durian had weakened from a supertyphoon that killed or left missing more than 1,000 people in the Philippines.

When it made landfall in southern Vietnam early last week it killed 83 people and left 11 people missing while damaging 240,000 buildings at a cost of more than 440 million dollars, officials said.

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