Flash flood sweeps away hamlet, number of storm victims in Vietnam rises to 155

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — A flash flood has washed away an entire village in northern Vietnam. VietnamThirty people were killed and dozens are missing, while the death toll from the typhoon and its aftermath rose to 155 on Wednesday.

Vietnamese state broadcaster VTV reported that the floodwaters that crashed down from a mountain in Lao Cai province on Tuesday buried the village of Lang Nu with 35 families under mud and rubble.

Only about a dozen people have survived so far. Rescue workers have recovered 30 bodies and are still searching for about 65 more.

The number of fatalities from Typhoon Yagi and its consequences has risen to 155. Another 141 people are missing and hundreds have been injured, VTV said.

Floods and landslides have caused the most deaths, many of them in the northwestern province of Lao Cai on the border with China, where Lang Nu is located. The popular trekking destination of Sapa is also located in Lao Cai province.

Many roads in the province are blocked by landslides and persistent rains, said Sapa tour guide Van A Po. The weather forced them to restrict travel and cancel all trekking tours.

“It’s very scary,” he said.

Tourism is a major driver of the local economy and many in the industry were stranded. Nguyen Van Luong, who works in a hotel, said he could not return home because the 15-kilometer road from Sapa to his village was too dangerous to drive.

“The road is badly damaged and landslides could occur at any time. My family told me to stay here until it is safe to go home.”

On Monday, a bridge collapsed and a bus was swept away destroyed by floods, dozens of people lost their lives.

The steel bridge In Phu Tho province, a landslide collapsed over the floodwaters of the Red River, sweeping ten cars and trucks and two motorcycles into the river. The bus carrying 20 people was swept into a flooded stream by a landslide in the mountainous province of Cao Bang.

Yagi was the strongest typhoon to hit the Southeast Asian country in decades. landed on Saturday with wind speeds of up to 149 km/h. Although the rain eased on Sunday, heavy rainfall continued and river levels remained dangerously high.

The heavy rains also damaged factories in the export-oriented industrial centers of northern Vietnam.

Storms like Typhoon Yagi “are becoming stronger due to climate change, primarily because warmer oceans provide more energy to drive the storms, resulting in higher wind speeds and heavier rainfall,” said Benjamin Horton, director of Singapore's Earth Observatory.