Hanoi river level hits 20-year high as SE Asia typhoon toll nears 200

HANOI — Residents of Vietnam's capital waded through waist-deep water on Wednesday as river levels hit a 20-year high and the toll from the area's strongest typhoon in decades rose to at least 179, with neighbouring nations also enduring deadly flooding and landslides.

Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam at the weekend, carrying winds in excess of 149 kilometres per hour and a deluge of rain that has also brought destructive floods to northern areas of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.

The Red River in Hanoi reached its highest level in 20 years on Wednesday, forcing residents to trudge through waist-deep brown water as they retrieved possessions from flooded homes.

Others fashioned makeshift boats from whatever materials they could find.

"This was the worst flooding I have witnessed," said Nguyen Tran Van, 41, who has lived near the Red River in Hanoi for 15 years.

"I didn't think the water would rise as quick as it did. I moved because if the water had risen just a bit higher, it would have been very difficult for us to leave," Van told AFP.

A landslide smashed into the remote mountain village of Lang Nu in Lao Cai province, levelling it to a flat expanse of mud and rocks strewn with debris and laced by streams.

State media said at least 34 people had been killed in the village, with another 46 still missing.

Villagers laid dead bodies on the ground, some in makeshift coffins, some wrapped in cloth, while police with picks and shovels dug through the dirt in search of more victims.

Vietnamese state media said the total death toll from Yagi, the strongest storm to hit northern Vietnam in 30 years, had risen to 179, with 145 missing across the country.

Worst floods since 2008

Mai Van Khiem, head of the national weather bureau, told state media that the water level in the Red River in Hanoi was at its highest since 2004.

Forecasters said the waters in Hanoi had peaked and the river level would go down, but Khiem warned of serious widespread flooding in the provinces surrounding the capital in the days ahead.

Police, soldiers and volunteers helped hundreds of residents along the banks of the swollen river in Hanoi to evacuate their homes in the early hours as the water rose rapidly.

A police official in Hanoi, who refused to be identified, said officers were going on foot or by boat to check every house along the river.

"All residents must leave," he said. "We are bringing them to public buildings turned into temporary shelters or they can stay with relatives. There has been so much rain and the water is rising quickly."

Images on Tuesday showed people stranded on rooftops and victims posted desperate pleas for help on social media, while 59,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes in Yen Bai province.

The United States is providing $1 million in immediate humanitarian aid to Vietnam, its embassy in Hanoi said.

Region-wide impact

In neighbouring Laos, authorities evacuated 300 people from 17 villages in northern Luang Namtha province, deputy district chief Sivilai Pankaew told AFP.

The UN's World Food Programme said it was "very concerned" for the safety of communities in northern Laos, while national radio reported extensive damage to houses, roads, markets, schools and farmland.

State media said at least one person had been killed and images showed rescuers working in murky brown floodwaters.

Thai authorities said four people were killed in the kingdom's northern provinces of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and the army had been deployed to help around 9,000 families hit by floods.

In Myanmar, days of rain around the sprawling low-rise capital Naypyidaw sent river levels to danger levels, the junta said in a statement.

Lay Shwe Zin Oo, from the ministry of social welfare, told AFP that casualties were expected but search teams were still gathering information.

Posts on social media showed people clinging to trees as the waters ran below them.

Southeast Asia experiences annual monsoon rains but human-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.

Typhoons in the region are forming closer to the coast, intensifying more rapidly, and staying over land longer due to climate change, according to a study published in July.