A typhoon that officials said was the most powerful to hit Vietnam in 20 years yesterday blew away from the country after setting off landslides, sinking boats and knocking out power to at least 1.7 million people.
At least 35 people were killed and more than 50 were missing, state media said.
The immediate focus for rescuers was on three villages in the nation’s central region, where landslides killed at least 19 people and are suspected of burying more than 40 others in thick mud and debris.
Photo: AFP
Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung traveled to the site of one landslide where soldiers were working to clear debris with bulldozers and he ordered officers to urgently send more troops to help with the efforts.
“We must reach the landslide site the fastest way. First, send in more soldiers before we can get the big machine there. We have to reach the area by all means, including by using helicopters,” he said.
Also among the dead were 12 fishers whose boats sank on Wednesday as Typhoon Molave approached with winds of up to 150kph. Another 14 fishers were still missing.
Officials said that the death toll across the nation might rise as some regions have been unable to report details of damage and casualties.
Rescuers yesterday morning dug up eight bodies in Tra Van village in Quang Nam Province, where a hillside collapsed on houses.
The victims had taken shelter in the community as the typhoon approached, the Vietnam News Agency reported.
In Tra Leng Village, about 45km from Tra Van, another landslide buried a community with several houses occupied by about 45 people.
Four people escaped, while rescuers recovered eight bodies and later pulled out four villagers alive, including two children, who were trapped in a buried house, Vietnam News said.
The survivors pulled from the thick brown debris were brought to a hospital with arm and leg fractures and other injuries. Rescuers continued a frantic search for at least 33 others believed to be buried.
Tra Leng was initially inaccessible due to damaged roads, flooding and other landslides, but by yesterday afternoon government disaster-response teams were able to open up a road with bulldozers and excavators, and brought in more rescuers and heavy equipment.
As troops scrambled to rescue those buried alive in Tra Leng, another part of a rain-soaked mountainside cascaded down in a torrent of mud in nearby Phuoc Loc District, killing three people and trapping 11, Vietnam News said.
Other villagers in Phuoc Loc were advised to flee to safety given the unstable mountain slope.
Elsewhere, four people were killed by falling trees and collapsed houses in Quang Nam and Gia Lai provinces when the typhoon slammed into the coast on Wednesday.
Navy search-and-rescue boats found the bodies of 12 of 26 fishers whose boats sank on Wednesday off Binh Dinh Province, state media said.
The typhoon blew off roofs of about 56,000 houses and caused a massive blackout in Quang Ngai Province, where 1.7 million people endured the onslaught of the typhoon overnight in darkness, Vietnam News reported.
At least 40,000 people were evacuated to emergency shelters and authorities shut down offices, factories and schools to prevent casualties.
The typhoon left at least 16 people dead in the Philippines before moving across the South China Sea to Vietnam.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS