At least 37 people died when severe Tropical Storm Durian hit southern Vietnam, destroying boats and houses.
This came after Philippine civil defense officials said yesterday that at least 1,266 people were either dead or missing after rivers of mud and volcanic ash triggered by the typhoon swamped hundreds of villages in the Philippines. More than 230,000 houses were reportedly damaged by the storm.
The storm ravaged coastal provinces in Vietnam, destroyed thousands of homes, sank hundreds of boats moored on a remote South China Sea island and yesterday swept across the Mekong delta south of Ho Chi Minh City, officials said.
The storm, which comes after eight typhoons hit Vietnam this year, packed lashing rains and wind speeds of nearly 120kph when it made landfall overnight but yesterday slowed to 100kph over land.
Fourteen people died and two were missing in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, east of the former Saigon, a province which has tourist resorts and offshore oil rigs, said Nguyen Ngoc Loc of the provincial flood and storm control committee.
The island of Phu Quy, 250km east of Ho Chi Minh City, suffered heavy damage as the storm swept through overnight, sinking hundreds of boats, uprooting trees and damaging houses, office buildings and schools.
"Phu Quy island suffered serious losses," Deputy Fisheries Minister Nguyen Viet Thang told VTV. More than 800 moored boats sank in the port, 1,100 buildings lost their roofs and 90 percent of power poles were toppled, he said.
Two people were reported dead in Tien Giang Province, two were missing and 20 injured, said flood and storm control committee official Nguyen Duc Thinh.
"More than 6,600 houses were damaged and 26 schools unroofed," he said, while the storm also snapped hundreds of trees and power poles.
"We have evacuated nearly 13,000 people," Thinh said. "It is still raining but the wind is not strong at the moment. We will allow people to get back to their homes in the next few hours."
Two more people were killed by falling trees in La Di town, Binh Thuan Province. And three people died to the north in the Phu Yen province, officials said.
In the Mekong delta province of Ben Tre, 16 people were reported dead later yesterday and there were fears of more casualties in the poor and flat region where many people live in wooden huts or on house boats.
"We had evacuated 3,500 people," said Tran Thi Luan, head of the provincial flood and storm control committee. "If the evacuation had not happened, the toll would have become much higher. The storm was really strong."
"The weather seems to be better but we do not dare yet to tell people that the storm is over, because this is a really complicated storm," Luan said.
Officials in Ho Chi Minh City and the seaside resort of Nha Trang said they had no immediate reports of casualties.
Ho Chi Minh City escaped the worst as the eye of the storm passed to the south, and more than 8,000 people had been evacuated from high-risk areas, but there were fears for some people missing, said an official.
"Five people were missing when they sneaked out for river fishing early this morning in the suburban Can Gio district," said Nguyen Trung Tin, deputy chairman of Ho Chi Minh City's people's committee.
FRAUD ALLEGED: The leader of an opposition alliance made allegations of electoral irregularities and called for a protest in Tirana as European leaders are to meet Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s Socialist Party scored a large victory in parliamentary elections, securing him his fourth term, official results showed late on Tuesday. The Socialist Party won 52.1 percent of the vote on Sunday compared with 34.2 percent for an alliance of opposition parties led by his main rival Sali Berisha, according to results released by the Albanian Central Election Commission. Diaspora votes have yet to be counted, but according to initial results, Rama was also leading there. According to projections, the Socialist Party could have more lawmakers than in 2021 elections. At the time, it won 74 seats in the
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CANCER: Jose Mujica earned the moniker ‘world’s poorest president’ for giving away much of his salary and living a simple life on his farm, with his wife and dog Tributes poured in on Tuesday from across Latin America following the death of former Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica, an ex-guerrilla fighter revered by the left for his humility and progressive politics. He was 89. Mujica, who spent a dozen years behind bars for revolutionary activity, lost his battle against cancer after announcing in January that the disease had spread and he would stop treatment. “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our comrade Pepe Mujica. President, activist, guide and leader. We will miss you greatly, old friend,” Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi wrote on X. “Pepe, eternal,” a cyclist shouted out minutes later,
MIGRATION: The Supreme Court justices said they were not deciding whether Trump could legally use the Alien Enemies Act to deport undocumented migrants US President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at the US Supreme Court after it blocked his bid to resume deportations of alleged Venezuelan gang members, saying the justices are “not allowing me to do what I was elected to do.” Trump’s berating of the high court, in a post on Truth Social, came after it dealt another setback to his attempt to swiftly expel alleged Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang members using an obscure wartime law, the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA). Trump has been at loggerheads with the judiciary ever since he returned to the White House, venting
RSS