HANOI: Nearly 200 people have been killed in Vietnam by Typhoon Yagi and 128 are missing due to flash floods and landslides, state media reported on Thursday. Vietnamese newspaper VNExpress reported that 199 people have been killed and more than 800 injured. In the capital, floodwaters from the Red River receded slightly but many areas were still inundated with water up to their necks in some places.
In Hanoi’s Tay Ho district, people walked down a street in knee-deep, muddy brown water, some still wearing helmets on their bicycles and motorbikes, having abandoned their vehicles on the road. Some rowed down the street in small boats, empty water bottles, a cooler and other flotsam drifting past; one man pushed his motorbike to drier ground on an aluminium sloop.
Pedestrians pulled their shorts up as high as possible to avoid being soaked by the wake caused by a delivery truck moving through the water.
Mai Anh, a bakery owner, evacuated the area with her family to take shelter with her parents, but returned Thursday to check on her shop and found more than two feet (half a meter) of water still inside.
“I can’t do business with this flooding,” he said. “The goods in my shop are all destroyed.” Flooding in Hanoi has been the worst in two decades. Residents began evacuating the area on Tuesday as floodwaters rose, and electricity and drinking water supplies have been cut off since Wednesday.
Floodwaters damaged the doors of Hoang Anh Tu’s home, from which he runs a brewery. Although he and his family were able to move into his parents’ home, they had to take turns guarding the building. “It’s very difficult,” he said. “We haven’t even been able to assess the damage because the flood came so fast.” Yagi was the strongest typhoon to hit the Southeast Asian country in decades. It made landfall on Saturday with winds of up to 149 km/h (92 mph). Despite weakening on Sunday, rain continued and rivers remain dangerously high.
The death toll soared earlier in the week when a flash flood swept away the entire village of Lang Nu in Vietnam’s northern Lao Cai province on Tuesday. Hundreds of rescuers worked tirelessly on Wednesday to search for survivors, but as of Thursday morning 53 villagers were still missing, VNExpress reported, while seven more bodies were found, raising the death toll to 42.
Floods and landslides have caused most of the deaths, many of which have occurred in the northwestern province of Lao Cai, bordering China, where Lang Nu is located. Lao Cai province is also home to the popular hiking destination of Sapa. On Monday, a bridge collapsed and a bus was swept away by floodwaters, killing dozens of people.
The steel bridge in Phu Tho province over the swollen Red River collapsed, sending 10 cars and trucks along with two motorbikes into the river. The bus carrying 20 people was swept into a flooded stream by a landslide in mountainous Cao Bang province. Experts say storms like Typhoon Yagi are becoming stronger because of climate change, as warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel them, leading to stronger winds and heavier rainfall.
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