Residents of Vietnam’s capital waded through waist-deep water yesterday as river levels hit a 20-year high and the toll from the area’s strongest typhoon in decades rose to at least 179, with neighbouring nations also enduring deadly flooding and landslides.
Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam at the weekend, carrying winds in excess of 149 kilometres per hour and a deluge of rain that has also brought destructive floods to northern areas of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
A landslide smashed into the remote mountain village of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, levelling it to a flat expanse of mud and rocks strewn with debris and laced by streams.
State media said at least 34 people had been killed in the village, with another 46 still missing.
Vietnamese state media said the total death toll from Yagi — the strongest storm to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years — had risen to 179, with 145 missing across the country.
Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly, and staying over land longer due to climate change.
