Typhoon Yagi leaves at least 59 dead in Vietnam, pounds infrastructure
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
People use ropes to remove fallen trees following the impact of Typhoon Yagi in Hai Phong, Vietnam.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
HANOI - Typhoon Yagi, Asia’s most powerful storm in 2024, left at least 59 dead in northern Vietnam and widespread damage as it churned westwards, preliminary government estimates showed on Sept 9, while the weather agency warned of more floods and landslides.
“By noon on Sept 9, the number of people killed because of Typhoon Yagi had increased to 59, including 44 killed in landslides and flash floods,” state-controlled news site VNExpress said, citing a report from the Ministry of Agriculture.
The typhoon made landfall on Sept 7 on Vietnam’s north-eastern coast, home to large manufacturing operations of domestic and foreign companies, and was downgraded to a tropical depression on Sept 8 by the meteorological agency.
It cut power to millions of households and companies, flooded highways, disrupted telecommunications networks, downed a medium-sized bridge and thousands of trees and brought to a halt economic activity in many industrial hubs.
Managers and workers at industrial parks and factories in Haiphong, a coastal city of two million, said on Sept 9 that they had no electricity and were trying to salvage equipment from rain in plants whose metal sheets roofing had been blown away.
“Everyone is scrambling to make sites safe and stocks dry,” said Mr Bruno Jaspaert, head of Deep C industrial zones, which host plants from more than 150 investors in Haiphong and the neighbouring province of Quang Ninh.
Walls of a factory in Haiphong of South Korea’s LG Electronics collapsed, according to pictures and a Reuters witness.
LG Electronics, a major maker of appliance and consumer electronics, said there were no casualties among its employees and acknowledged damages at its production site, noting a warehouse with refrigerators and washing machines had been flooded.
“Lots of damage,” said Mr Hong Sun, the chairman of the South Korean business association in Vietnam, when asked about the typhoon’s impact on Korean factories in coastal areas.
A manager of leased factories confirmed widespread damage to roofs and prolonged power cuts in northern provinces.
A bridge in the province of Phu Tho collapsed on Sept 9, the authorities said.
“This is normally a busy bridge, a key bridge in the province,” a senior official of the province’s transport department said, adding there was no report available yet on casualties.
The weather agency warned of more floods and landslides, noting that rainfall ranged between 208mm and 433mm in several parts of the region over the past 24 hours.
State-run power provider EVN said that more than 5.7 million customers lost power during the weekend as dozens of power lines were broken, but electricity was restored on Sept 9 to nearly 75 per cent of those affected. REUTERS, AFP
