Flash floods in Vietnam have now claimed at least 19 lives, as residents in affected areas sought safety in higher ground, the government said yesterday.
Boasting a long coastline, Vietnam is battered by floods and storms every year, with hundreds of lives lost from the annual monsoon barrage.
The remnants of Typhoon Son Tinh, now a tropical depression, made landfall on Wednesday night, the third tropical storm to hit Vietnam since the start of the year.
Photo: AFP
The latest report from the country’s disaster office said that 19 people have been killed so far, with an additional 13 people unaccounted for.
Floods and landslides from heavy rains have ranged far and wide and affected rural and urban areas, including the capital, Hanoi.
They are expected to continue in the coming days.
Residents in Chuong My district on the outskirts of Hanoi were asked to leave their homes and get to higher ground for fear of heavy floods, the state-controlled VNExpress news site reported on Saturday.
“We must be active in moving our furniture out of homes. From last year’s experience, we did not have time to run,” a local resident was quoted as saying.
Published photographs showed homeowners in raincoats moving bags of goods and livestock.
“My house is in a very low location, so I have to move all the rice to higher places,” Nguyen Duy Dong told VNExpress. “Since the afternoon, we have moved more than 1 tonne of rice.”
The amount of land affected has also spiked, with more than 15,000 houses damaged or destroyed, and more than 110,000 hectares of crops inundated.
Vietnam’s rainy season, like other countries in the region, is from last month to November, but its death toll from stormy weather has often exceeded its neighbors.
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