Typhoon Yagi weakened on Sunday, September 8, and was downgraded to a tropical depression after killing more than ten people in Vietnam, where it caused considerable damage. Yagi, which devastated several regions in southern China and the Philippines this week, killing at least twenty-four people, made landfall on Saturday in northern Vietnam, with winds exceeding 150 kilometers per hour.
A family of four was killed in a landslide in Vietnam’s mountainous northern Hoa Binh province overnight Saturday to Sunday, state media said. The landslide came after several hours of heavy rains triggered by the typhoon, when a hillside gave way and swallowed a house. The 51-year-old owner of the house managed to escape, but his wife, daughter and two grandchildren were buried.
According to the Ministry of Defense’s Relief and Assistance Department, in addition to the four victims in Hoa Binh, ten other people were crushed to death by falling trees, landslides and drifting boats.
On Sunday afternoon, six people, including a newborn and a 1-year-old child, were killed in a landslide in Sa Pa city in northwestern Vietnam. The landslide was caused by heavy rain and strong winds, but authorities have yet to attribute the six deaths to Yagi.
Nearly 3,300 houses destroyed
Vietnam’s meteorological agency downgraded Yagi from a typhoon to a tropical depression on Sunday as several areas in the port city of Haiphong were under half a metre of water and power supplies were cut off.
In Along Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site located about 70 kilometers from the city, fishermen were shocked by the damage caused by the typhoon on Sunday morning. About thirty boats were severely damaged or sank in Quang Ninh province near Along Bay.
The typhoon also destroyed nearly 3,300 houses, more than 100,000 hectares of rice and other crops, as well as numerous aquaculture infrastructures in the region.
The region is frequently hit in summer and fall by typhoons that form east of the Philippines and Thailand. But typhoons are forming closer to the coast than before, intensifying more quickly and staying on land longer because of climate change, according to a study published in July.
