HANOI: Residents of Hanoi waded through water everywhere on Wednesday as rivers reached a 20-year high and the number of typhoons hit 150, the strongest in a decade, with neighboring countries also hit. endured floods and landslides.
Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam over the weekend with winds of over 149 kilometers per hour and torrential rains that also brought devastating floods to northern Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
Hanoi's Red River reached its highest level in 20 years on Wednesday, forcing residents to wade through waist-deep brown water as they retrieved their belongings from flooded homes.
Others built makeshift boats from whatever materials they could find.
“This is the worst flood I've ever seen,” said Nguyen Tran Van, 41, who has lived near the Red River in the Vietnamese capital for 15 years.
“I didn't think the water would rise as fast as it did. I moved because if the water rose just a little, it would be difficult for us to leave,” said Van.
A landslide hit the remote mountain town of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, flattening it into mud and boulders, littered with debris and tied up by rivers.
State media said at least 30 people were killed in the town, and 65 others were still missing.
Residents placed corpses on the ground, some in makeshift coffins, others wrapped in cloth, and police with jackets and shovels dug through the dirt to find the victims.
Vietnamese state media said the death toll from Yagi — the strongest typhoon to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years — had risen to 155 across the country, with 141 missing. .
It was not clear whether the total included victims of Tuesday's landslide, where access remained difficult and the Internet was down, the report said.
Mai Van Khiem, head of the National Weather Service, told state media that the water level in Hanoi's Red River is the highest it has been in years. 2004.
He warned of severe flooding in the provinces surrounding the capital in the coming days.
Police, soldiers and volunteers helped hundreds of residents along a swollen river in Hanoi evacuate their homes in the early hours of the morning as the water rose rapidly.
A Hanoi police official, who declined to be named, said police were on foot or by boat to check every house along the river.
“All residents must leave,” he said. “We take them to government buildings that have been converted into temporary shelters or they can stay with their relatives. It is raining a lot and the water is rising fast”.
Pictures on Tuesday showed people trapped on rooftops and victims posted pleas for help on social media, while 59,000 people were forced to leave their homes in Yen Bai province.
In neighboring Laos, authorities have evacuated 300 people from 17 villages north of Luang Namtha, said deputy district chief Sivilai Pankaew.
He said the Laos-China high-speed railway was not affected by the floods.
In the historic city of Luang Prabang — a world heritage site and major tourist destination — houses and shops were flooded, the Lao Post reported.
State media said at least one person had died and pictures showed rescuers working in murky flood waters.
Thai authorities said four people were killed in the state's northern Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces and the army was deployed to help about 9,000 families.
In Myanmar, residents and local media reported that floods knocked out electricity and telephone lines in the town of Tachileik, in the eastern Shan region that has been experiencing heavy rains.
Further south, hundreds of residents of the Myanmar border trading post of Myawaddy fled their homes to take shelter in schools and monasteries on higher ground as the waters rose, villagers said. , which is located on the border of Thailand.
Southeast Asia experiences heavy rains every year, but human-induced climate change is causing more extreme weather that can cause more damaging floods.
Hurricanes in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying faster, and staying on land longer due to climate change, according to a study released in July.
