Typhoon Damrey’s destructive rampage through Vietnam left 33 people dead as heavy rains triggered flash flooding and landslides in its wake, officials said on Wednesday.
The raging typhoon, which slammed ashore on Tuesday morning, also injured more than 100 others after it breached sea dykes, inundating villages along the coastline. The storm, the worst to hit Vietnam in a decade, weakened as it pushed further into Laos on Wednesday.
Newly recovered bodies pushed the death toll in Asia to 67 from Damrey, which spawned destruction as it swept from the Philippines into China, Vietnam and now Laos. About 300 000 people along Vietnam’s northern and central coast were evacuated to higher ground before the typhoon hit.
Typhoon-triggered flash flooding in the northern mountainous province of Yen Bai killed at least 31 people and left three others missing from Cat Thinh village in Van Chan district, said Nguyen Van Ky, deputy chief of the provincial military command.
Ky said raging flood waters completely washed away 150 houses in the same district. Nearly 800 soldiers and militiamen were deployed in the search for the missing, he said.
Casualty reports have been slow to filter in because the area is remote and phone lines are down, he said.
More than 100 people from Van Chan district were injured in the flash floods, Ky said.
National broadcaster VTV showed images of churning muddy waters swallowing up houses, leaving behind only the concrete foundations.
One bedraggled survivor was quoted as saying that the flood waters came so fast that villagers barely had time to flee.
A total of 23 bodies were recovered on Wednesday in the province, while the remaining eight were found floating about 50km downstream.
In neighbouring Tram Tau district in Yen Bai, a landslide buried three homes and rescuers have recovered one body so far. Six other people are missing and presumed dead.
In northern Quang Ninh province, a 31-year-old woman was swept away on Tuesday in a raging stream, while three workers were injured, one seriously, when their makeshift house collapsed, provincial disaster official Pham Dinh Hoa said.
Five people were hurt by falling power poles and four were injured slightly while clearing streets of downed trees in Thanh Hoa province, about 160km south of Hanoi, officials said on Tuesday.
No rain was reported in the typhoon-hit province of Thanh Hoa and three others on Wednesday, so evacuees began returning home, said disaster official Tran Quang Trung in Thanh Hoa.
Trung said sea water has receded, allowing people to return to their homes in villages that were inundated when high waves breached sea dykes.
Damage from the typhoon is estimated at 83-billion dong ($5,2-million) in Thanh Hoa province alone.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai ordered local governments to provide food, supplies, and medicine to people in the affected areas, the official daily Nhan Dan (People) reported.
After killing at least 34 people in China and the Philippines, the typhoon slammed ashore in Vietnam early on Tuesday with winds of up to 102kph.
Damrey — which means ”elephant” in Cambodia’s Khmer language — ravaged southern China’s Hainan island and the neighbouring province of Guangdong, killing 16. Officials said about 25 000 homes were demolished and another 100 000 damaged, Xinhua reported.
It was the most destructive typhoon to hit southern China in more than three decades. While still a tropical storm in the Philippines last week, Damrey triggered rain and winds that killed at least 18 people there. — Sapa-AP