Typhoon Yagi made landfall on Saturday night, arriving as one of the most powerful storms in Vietnam’s history. Yagi has caused damage, flooding, and landslides along with significant loss of life. Wind speeds up to 125 mph ravaged the nation then weakened to a tropical depression. Before the danger subsided, Yagi was roughly the equivalent of a Category-3 hurricane.
At the time of publication, 64 people have died, with many reported missing.
Videos by VICE
The typhoon’s devastation was particularly severe in northern Vietnam. Overflowing rivers and heavy rains triggered landslides where, in the northern province of Cao Bang, a landslide swept away a bus carrying 20 passengers. One person was rescued and four bodies were recovered. The majority of the passengers remain missing.
A steel bridge over the Red River in the Pho Thu province collapsed. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has told government agencies to focus their efforts on the bridge collapse. While the brunt of the storm has passed, rains will continue through Monday and Tuesday, exacerbating fears of flooding and landslides.
Industrial areas like the Haiphong and Quang Ninh provinces, home to factories belonging to major companies like LG, experienced significant damage and flooding that caused mass power outages that have left thousands of homes and businesses without electricity.
So far, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh approved an aid package of $4.62 million to assist in recovery efforts.
Before hitting Vietnam, the storm went through the Philippines and southern China. In the Philippines, the storm is reported to have killed at least 20 and injured another 22, with upwards of 26 still missing. The storm has killed four people in southern China, along with causing around $102 million in damages and the collapse of around 57,000 homes.
Yagi was an unusually strong storm for the region, which the director of the Earth Observatory in Singapore Benjamin Horton attributes to climate change, as warmer ocean temperatures are feeding storms much more energy than ever before.
