Vietnam Flood Death Toll Rises to 16 — Official

Rescue teams in central Vietnam are racing to save residents trapped by severe flooding that has left at least 16 people dead, authorities said on Thursday.

Torrential rain has battered the country’s south-central region since late October, submerging historic sites and popular coastal tourist destinations. The environment ministry confirmed that 16 people have died since the weekend, while the search continues for five others still missing.

More than 43,000 homes have been flooded, and major roads remain impassable due to landslides. State media reported that rescuers in Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces used boats to break through roofs and windows to reach people stranded by rising waters on Wednesday.

In Nha Trang, a major beach destination, entire neighbourhoods were underwater and hundreds of vehicles submerged, according to AFP images. The highland areas around Da Lat have also recorded multiple deadly landslides, with some locations receiving up to 600 millimetres of rain since the weekend, the national weather bureau said.

As water levels surged, emergency hotlines were overwhelmed with calls Wednesday night. The defence ministry has deployed helicopters to aid in the search for those still trapped.

The Ba River in Dak Lak surpassed its 1993 record in two areas early Thursday, while the Cai River in Khanh Hoa province also reached a new peak, the weather bureau reported. The historic flooding has been driven by heavy rains falling on regions already saturated with water, said Hoang Phuc Lam, deputy head of the National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting.

According to Vietnam’s national statistics office, natural disasters have killed or left missing 279 people and caused more than $2 billion in damage between January and October this year.

Vietnam regularly experiences heavy rainfall between June and September, but scientists say climate change is making extreme weather events increasingly frequent and destructive.

AFP