Rain continued to lash Vietnam’s flood-hit capital Hanoi and the north-central countryside yesterday as the official death toll climbed to 74 after more than a week of heavy downpours.
Thousands of people, including children and the elderly, remained trapped in their water-logged homes in Hanoi, where 20 people have died since last Friday in what officials now call the capital’s worst floods in 35 years.
Authorities worried whether the rain-soaked dyke system around Hanoi and across the northern Red River delta would hold back swollen waterways and have deployed thousands of troops to stand by for emergency repairs.
Across Hanoi, 44 neighborhoods remained under between one and 2.5m of dirty brown water, raising fears about outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dengue fever, authorities said.
Hanoi officials said more than 9,000 troops had joined rescue efforts and over 5,000 households had received help — but in many areas residents said there was hardly a police officer, soldier or rescue volunteer in sight.
Schools across the capital remained closed Tuesday, and hospitals were crowded with cases of respiratory and gastrointestinal disease. Many districts still had no electricity and suffered shortages of drinking water, while food and petrol prices have multiplied in local markets.
Among those killed in Hanoi were 12 people who were swept away in floods or fell into open drains hidden under flooded roads, four victims of electrocution and two people killed by lightning, said authorities.
Across the disaster region, more than 120,000 buildings have been flooded, 250,000 hectares of rice and other crops have been lost, and 170km of rural roads damaged, officials said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
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