HANOI: Hanoi residents waded through waist-deep water on Wednesday as river levels hit a 20-year high and the toll from the strongest typhoon in decades topped 150, with neighboring nations also enduring deadly floods and landslides.
Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam over the weekend, bringing winds of more than 149 kilometers per hour and a deluge of rain that also brought destructive flooding to northern areas of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
Hanoi's Red River reached its highest level in 20 years on Wednesday, forcing residents to wade through waist-deep brown water as they retrieved belongings from flooded homes.
Others fashioned makeshift boats from whatever materials they could find.
“This was the worst flood I've seen,” said Nguyen Tran Van, 41, who has lived near the Red River in the Vietnamese capital for 15 years.
“I didn't think the water would rise so fast. I moved because if the water had risen a little higher, it would have been very difficult for us to leave,” Van said.
A landslide hit the remote mountain village of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, leveling it into a flat expanse of mud and rock, strewn with debris and riddled with streams.
State media said at least 30 people had been killed in the village and another 65 were still missing.
Villagers placed bodies on the ground, some in makeshift coffins, others wrapped in cloth, while police with picks and shovels dug through the ground in search of more victims.
Vietnamese state media said the toll from Yagi – the strongest storm to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years – had risen to 155 across the country, with 141 missing.
It was not clear if that total included victims of Tuesday's landslide, where access remained difficult and internet was cut, reports said.
Mai Van Khiem, head of the national weather bureau, told state media that the water level in Hanoi's Red River was the highest since 2004.
He warned of widespread severe flooding in the provinces surrounding the capital in the coming days.
Police, soldiers and volunteers helped hundreds of residents along the banks of Hanoi's swollen river evacuate their homes in the early hours as water levels rose rapidly.
A Hanoi police official, who declined to be named, said officers were walking or by boat to check every house along the river.
“All residents must leave,” he said. “We bring them to public buildings converted into temporary shelters or they can stay with relatives. There has been so much rain and the water is rising fast.”
Images on Tuesday showed people trapped on rooftops and victims posted desperate pleas for help on social media as 59,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in Yen Bai province.
In neighboring Laos, authorities evacuated 300 people from 17 villages in northern Luang Namtha province, deputy district chief Sivilai Pankaew said.
He said the Laos-China high-speed railway was not affected by the floods.
In the historic city of Luang Prabang – a World Heritage Site and major tourist destination – houses and shops were flooded, the Lao Post reported.
State media said at least one person was killed and images showed rescuers working in the murky waters of brown floods.
Thai authorities said four people were killed in the kingdom's northern Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces, and the army was deployed to help some 9,000 families affected by the floods.
In Myanmar, residents and local media said floods destroyed power and telephone lines in the town of Tachileik in eastern Shan State, where heavy rains were forecast.
Further south, hundreds of residents of the Myanmar border trading center of Myawaddy fled their homes to take shelter in schools and monasteries on higher ground as floodwaters rose, said a resident of the town, who is on the border with Thailand.
Southeast Asia experiences annual monsoon rains, but human-induced climate change is driving more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.
Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying faster and staying on land longer because of climate change, according to a study published in July.
