Four days after Typhoon Yagi struck, Vietnam continues to record losses. The death toll has risen to 197, with its procession of floods and landslides in the north of the country, the Vietnamese government announced on Thursday, September 12.
One hundred and twenty-eight people are missing and more than 250,000 hectares of farmland have been destroyed, agriculture ministry officials said in an official report. The previous death toll was 155 on Wednesday. The U.S. embassy in Hanoi has pledged $1 million in immediate humanitarian aid.
The tropical storm hit northern Vietnam on Saturday and Sunday with wind gusts exceeding 150 km/h. The deluge of rain also caused destructive flooding in Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. According to meteorologists, Yagi is the most powerful typhoon to hit northern Vietnam in the past thirty years.
monstrous floods
Bridges were destroyed, roofs torn off and factories damaged by the storm, which made landfall on Saturday. Since then, the north of the country has been hit by monstrous floods. Some villages are partially under water, while thousands of people have been evacuated.
In the mountainous province of Lao Cai, landslides swept away the entire village of Lang Nu, leaving at least 30 dead and 65 missing, according to Vietnamese state media. The latter broadcast shocking images of the landslide, also showing villagers tending to their dead, some wrapped in cloth, others lying in makeshift coffins, while police continued to search for victims in the mud.
People waded through chest-deep water on Wednesday in Hanoi, where the Red River reached its highest level in twenty years due to Typhoon Yagi. In one suburb, more than 15,000 people were affected by the floods. Farmers were the hardest hit by the typhoon: around 1.5 million chickens and ducks died in the aftermath of Yagi, as well as 2,500 pigs, buffalos and cows, according to official figures.
Before reaching Vietnam, Typhoon Yagi tore through southern China and the Philippines, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens. Typhoons in the region are now forming closer to the coast, intensifying more quickly and staying on land longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.
