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 passed 150, with neighboring countries also enduring deadly floods and landslides.
Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam at the weekend with winds of over 149 kilometers per hour and a deluge of rain that has also brought destructive flooding to the northern parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
The Red River in Hanoi reached its highest level in 20 years on Wednesday, forcing residents to trudge through waist-deep brown water as they retrieved belongings from flooded homes.
Others made makeshift boats out of 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 as fast as it did. I moved because if the water had risen a little higher it would have been very difficult for us to leave, says Van.
A landslide slammed into the remote mountain village of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, flattening it into a flat surface of mud and rocks, littered with debris and laced with streams.
State media said at least 30 people had been killed in the village, while another 65 were still missing.
Villagers laid dead bodies on the ground, some in makeshift coffins, some wrapped in cloth, while police with pickaxes and shovels dug through the dirt 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 whether the total includes victims of Tuesday's landslide, where access remained difficult and internet was down, reports said.
Mai Van Khiem, director of the National Weather Bureau, told state media that the water level in the Red River in Hanoi was the highest since 2004.
He warned of severe widespread flooding in the provinces surrounding the capital in the coming days.
Police, soldiers and volunteers helped hundreds of residents along the banks of the swollen river in Hanoi to evacuate their homes in the early hours as water levels rose rapidly.
A Hanoi police official, who declined to be named, said officers would go on foot or by boat to check every house along the river.
“All residents must leave,” he said. “We take them to public buildings turned into temporary shelters or they can stay with relatives. There has been so much rain and the water is rising fast.”
On Tuesday, images showed people stranded on rooftops and victims posting desperate pleas for help on social media, while 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 had been killed and pictures showed rescuers working in murky brown floodwaters.
Thai authorities said four people were killed in the kingdom's northern provinces of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and that the army has been deployed to help some 9,000 flood-affected families.
In Myanmar, residents and local media said floods knocked out power and telephone lines in the town of Tachileik, in eastern Shan state, where further heavy rains were forecast.
Further south, hundreds of residents of Myanmar's border trading hub of Myawaddy left their homes to take shelter in schools and monasteries on higher ground as floodwaters rose, a resident of the town, which straddles the Thai border, said.
Southeast Asia experiences annual monsoon rains, but human-made climate change is causing 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 over land longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.
