Red River floods Hanoi, Vietnam, as Typhoon Yagi kills over 150

Authors: Khanh Vu and Francesco Guarascio

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam’s capital Hanoi evacuated thousands of people living near the swollen Red River, whose waters flooded streets days after Typhoon Yagi struck the northern part of the country, killing at least 152 people.

Yagi, the most powerful typhoon to hit Asia this year, brought storm surges and heavy rains as it moved west after making landfall Saturday. This week, a bridge collapsed as it crossed provinces along the Red River, the region’s largest river.

“This is the worst flooding I have seen in 30 years,” Hanoi resident Tran Le Quyen, 42, told Reuters, adding that she had had to move furniture from her flooded home to higher ground.

“Yesterday morning it was dry. Now the whole street is flooded. We couldn’t sleep last night.”

The government estimates that 152 people have died and 140 are missing as a result of the typhoon and subsequent landslides and flooding.

Some schools in Hanoi advised students to stay at home until the end of the week, and thousands of residents of low-lying areas were evacuated, government and state media reported.

“My house has now become part of the river,” said Nguyen Van Hung, 56, a resident of a neighborhood on the banks of the Red River.

Closer to the city centre, the charity Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation was forced to leave its offices on Tuesday after authorities warned of a risk of flooding.

“People were moving around in panic, moving their motorbikes, carrying their belongings,” said spokeswoman Carlota Torres Lliro, expressing concern for dozens of children and families living in slums and makeshift homes along the river.

HITTING THE FACTORIES

Hurricane Yagi wreaked havoc on dozens of factories and flooded warehouses in export-oriented coastal industrial hubs east of Hanoi, forcing closures that executives say will take weeks to fully reopen some.

These disruptions pose a risk to global supply chains, as Vietnam is home to large international companies that ship mainly to the United States, Europe and other developed countries.

In other provinces north of the capital, landslides triggered by torrential floods claimed the lives of dozens of people.

“The first floor of my house is completely underwater,” said Nguyen Duc Tam, 40, a resident of Thai Nguyen, a town about 60 km (37 miles) from Hanoi.

“Now we have no fresh water and no electricity,” he added.

Among the factories located on the outskirts of the city, which is home to about 400,000 people, is a large Samsung Electronics plant.

The South Korean company ships about half of its smartphones worldwide from Vietnam.

There were no signs of flooding at the plant on Wednesday, a Reuters witness said.

“In the more than 20 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen such historic flooding,” said Hoang Hai Luan, 30. “My property, and probably many other people’s property, was completely lost.”

(Reporting by Khanh Vu, Francesco Guarascio and Phuong Nguyen in Hanoi; Minh Nguyen and Thinh Nguyen in Thai Nguyen; Writing by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Miral Fahmy and Clarence Fernandez)