HANOI – At least 14 people have been killed and 176 others injured in Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi swept through the north of the country, state media reported on Sunday, as officials warned of heavy rain despite its diminishing strength.
Described by Vietnamese officials as one of the most powerful typhoons to hit the region in the past decade, Yagi left more than 3 million people in the north of the country without electricity. It also damaged vital agricultural land, nearly 116,192 hectares where mostly rice and fruit are grown. Hundreds of flights were cancelled after four airports were closed.
Yagi made landfall early Saturday in the coastal provinces of Quang Ninh and Haiphong with winds of up to 149 kilometers per hour (92 miles per hour). It raged for about 15 hours before gradually weakening into a tropical depression early Sunday morning. Vietnam’s meteorological department forecast torrential rains in the country’s northern and central provinces and warned of flooding in low-lying areas, flash flooding of streams and landslides on steep slopes.
Municipal workers, along with the army and police, were busy in the capital Hanoi removing uprooted trees, fallen billboards, toppled electricity poles and washed-away roofs, while assessing damaged buildings.
Yagi was still a storm when it broke away from the northwest of the Philippines and moved into the South China Sea on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and leaving 26 others missing, most of them in landslides and widespread flooding in the archipelago nation. It then headed toward China, killing three people and injuring nearly 100, before landing in Vietnam.
According to Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, storms like Typhoon Yagi “are becoming stronger due to climate change, particularly as warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel storms, leading to increased wind speeds and heavier rainfall.”
