HANOI: Residents of Hanoi waded through waist-deep water on Wednesday as river levels hit their highest in 20 years and the death toll from the strongest typhoon in decades surpassed 150, while neighbouring countries battled deadly floods and landslides.
Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam over the weekend, bringing winds of more than 149 kilometers per hour and torrential rain that also caused destructive flooding in northern parts of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.
Hanoi's Red River reached its highest level in 20 years on Wednesday, forcing residents to wade through waist-deep brown water to retrieve belongings from flooded homes.
Others built makeshift boats using whatever materials they could find.
“This was the worst flood I have ever 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 so fast. I moved because if the water had risen just a little bit higher, it would have been very difficult for us to leave,” Van said.
A landslide has hit the remote mountain village of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, turning it into a flat expanse of mud and rocks, strewn with debris and crisscrossed by streams.
According to state media, at least 30 people have been killed in the village and 65 others are still missing.
Villagers laid the bodies on the ground, some in makeshift coffins, others wrapped in tarpaulins, while police, with pickaxes and shovels, dug into the ground looking for more victims.
Vietnamese state media said the death toll from Yagi, the strongest storm to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years, had risen to 155 across the country, with 141 missing.
It is unclear whether this total includes victims of Tuesday's landslide, where access remained difficult and internet connectivity was reportedly cut off.
Mai Van Khiem, head of the national meteorological bureau, told state media that the water level of the Red River in Hanoi has reached its highest level since 2004.
He warned of severe and widespread flooding in 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 evacuate their homes in the early hours of the morning as water levels rapidly rose.
A Hanoi police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said officers were walking or taking boats to check every house along the river.
“All residents have to leave,” he said. “We are taking them to public buildings that have been turned into temporary shelters or they can stay with relatives. It has rained so much and the water is rising rapidly.”
Footage on Tuesday showed people stranded on rooftops and victims posting desperate pleas for help on social media, as 59,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in Yen Bai province.
In neighboring Laos, authorities have evacuated 300 people from 17 villages in the northern province of Luang Namtha, deputy district chief Sivilai Pankaew said.
He said the Laos-China high-speed railway had not been affected by the floods.
In the historic city of Luang Prabang, a World Heritage site and major tourist destination, homes and shops were flooded, the Lao Post reported.
State media reported that at least one person was killed and footage showed rescuers working in the murky, brown flood waters.
Thai authorities said four people had died in the kingdom's northern provinces of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and that the military had been deployed to help around 9,000 families affected by the floods.
In Myanmar, residents and local media said flooding had 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 Myawaddy, a trade hub on the border with Myanmar, fled their homes for schools and monasteries on higher ground as floodwaters rose, said a resident of the town, which borders Thailand.
Southeast Asia experiences annual monsoon rains, but human-induced climate change is causing more intense weather, which can make destructive flooding more likely.
Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly and staying on land longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.
