At least 27 people have died and nearly two dozen are missing after Typhoon Damrey barreled into Vietnam, authorities said yesterday, damaging tens of thousands of homes and submerging highways days before the country welcomes world leaders to the APEC summit.
The storm, which made landfall on Saturday, is the worst in decades to strike the country’s southern coastal region, an area normally spared the typhoons that typically hit further north.
More than 40,000 homes were damaged as heavy rains and 130kph winds tore through the area, leaving 27 dead and 22 reported missing, according to the disaster management office.
Photo: AFP
Coastal Khanh Hoa Province, home to the popular white sand Nha Trang beach, was hardest hit with 16 dead and 10 injured, the government said.
More than 30,000 people were evacuated ahead of the latest storm in central Vietnam, including foreign tourists.
Photographs showed residents wading through knee-deep floodwater in several cities as toppled electricity poles and trees blocked roads.
About 300 ships were wrecked, according to the government, while local authorities said Phu Yen Province’s Tuy Hoa city had never suffered such devastation before.
There were also reports of lesser damage around 500km north in Da Nang, the coastal city which will host the APEC summit next weekend.
A local resident said strong winds and rain had torn down signs promoting the APEC gathering.
“Now city people are joining hands with authorities to clean up the mess to make the city look nicer for the APEC week,” said Tran Huy, as dark clouds loomed above.
An hour’s drive south in Hoi An, an atmospheric port city and popular stop on Vietnam’s tourist circuit, a resident said floodwater was up to 1.5, deep in some parts of town.
“Water has started to rise in the Old Quarter,” resident Dinh Thi Xuan Hoa told the state-run VNExpress, referring to a section of the city recognized as a World Heritage site for its architecture.
“Foreign tourists were transferred by boats to hotels in higher area,” she added.
The spouses of some APEC leaders are scheduled to visit to Hoi An, the Vietnamese Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records
RSS