Nearly 200 people have lost their lives in Vietnam in the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi and more than 125 others are still missing as flash floods and landslides spell disaster in the country, according to state media reports on Thursday. More than 800 people have sustained injuries.
Yagi is the strongest typhoon to hit Vietnam in decades. It made landfall on Saturday. Despite losing a significant portion of its intensity by Sunday, heavy precipitation continued and scores of rivers remained dangerously high, reported NPR.
The flooding in the capital Hanoi has been notoriously bad, triggering significant evacuations. Experts believe storms like Typhoon Yagi are getting stronger due to climate change as higher oceanic temperatures provide more energy to fuel them, leading to heavier rainfall.
Steel bridge in Phu Tho province over Red River collapses
The death toll spiked as a flash flood brought devastation to the entire hamlet of Lang Nu in northern Vietnam’s Lao Cai province on Tuesday. Hundreds of rescue personnel put in a lot of efforts the next day to search for survivors, but as of Thursday morning 53 villagers are missing.
7 more bodies have also been found, bringing the death toll in the area to 42. Floods and landslides have caused most of the deaths in the Lao Cai province, bordering China. The province is also home to the popular trekking destination of Sapa.
On Monday, a steel bridge in Phu Tho province over the Red River collapsed, sending 10 cars and trucks, besides a couple of motorbikes, into the river. A bus carrying 20 people got pushed into a flooded stream by a landslide in the mountainous Cao Bang province.
