Three people have been killed and at least 13 others injured in a typhoon in Vietnam, authorities said.
Typhoon Kajiki hit Vietnam‘s north central coast on Monday, damaging nearly 7,000 homes, felling 18,000 trees and flooding thousands of hectares of rice plantings.
Among the three victims are a 90-year-old man whose house collapsed in the rain, and a man who died in Nghe An province on Friday after being electrocuted while trying to secure his roof, according to state media.
The typhoon also brought down 331 electricity poles, causing widespread blackouts in several provinces, the Vietnamese government said in a statement.
Heavy rain continued to fall on Tuesday morning, causing flooding in the streets of the capital, Hanoi. Cars were seen submerged up to their roofs in water, and the city’s largest lake overflowed its banks.
Several villages in Bac Ninh province have been cut off due to flooding, Vietnamese state media reports.
Two airports, one in Thanh Hoa and the other in Quang Binh province, remained closed on Tuesday after flights were grounded on Monday, the country’s civil aviation authority said.
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There were plans to evacuate 600,000 people and 152,000 homes across Thanh Hoa, Quang Tri, and Danang provinces, state media reported.
The government also mobilised 16,500 soldiers and 107,000 paramilitary personnel to assist with evacuations and rescue missions.
Vietnam’s coastline on the South China Sea is particularly prone to storms that often trigger deadly flooding and landslides.
Kajiki was set to be more powerful than Typhoon Yagi, which killed 300 people and caused £2.4bn in damage last year.
After making landfall on Monday afternoon, Kajiki has since weakened into a tropical depression as it moved across to Laos on Tuesday morning, according to Vietnam’s national weather agency.
The agency, however, warned that some areas in northern Vietnam are likely to get up to 150 millimetres (six inches) of rain in six hours, which could cause flash floods and landslides.
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China’s southernmost province downgraded its emergency response alert on Monday morning after people in the holiday resort of Sanya on Hainan Island were forced to take shelter on Sunday evening as the storm damaged trees and buildings.
In Thailand, residents in foothills and low-lying areas near waterways were warned about possible flash floods and landslides due to forecasted heavy rain into Wednesday.
