Typhoon Yagi has already claimed 155 lives in Vietnam, Hanoi flooded due to river overflow
Kyiv • UNN
The capital of Vietnam evacuates residents due to the overflow of the Red River after Typhoon Yagi. Water levels reached a 20-year high, flooding streets and causing power outages in some areas.
The Vietnamese capital Hanoi has evacuated thousands of people living near the overflowing Red River as its level rose to a 20-year high, flooding the streets a few days after Typhoon Yagi hit the north of the country, killing at least 155 people, UNN reports citing Reuters.
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Asia's most powerful typhoon this year, Yagi brought storms and heavy rains as it moved westward after making landfall on Saturday, collapsing a bridge this week on its way through provinces along the Red River, the region's largest.
The government estimates that across the country, the typhoon and subsequent landslides and flooding claimed 155 lives and left 141 missing.
On Wednesday, Vietnam's state electricity company EVN said it had cut off power in some flooded areas of the capital for safety reasons.
Mai Van Khiem, director of the National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting, said in a statement that the Red River's level had reached its highest level in two decades and that more rain was expected over the next two days.
In some schools in Hanoi, students were told to stay at home for the rest of the week, while thousands of residents of low-lying areas were evacuated, the government and state media reported.
Closer to the city center, the children's charity Blue Dragon evacuated its office on Tuesday after authorities warned of flood risks.
EVN said on Wednesday that it has stopped releasing water from the dam of the Hoa Binh hydropower plant, the second largest in northern Vietnam, into the Red River's tributary, the Da River, to reduce water flows.
Vietnamese authorities also expressed concern on Wednesday that Chinese hydropower plants were discharging water into another Red River tributary, the Luo River, known in China as the Pan-Lungjiang, and Beijing said the two countries were cooperating to prevent flooding.
"Yagi damaged many factories and flooded warehouses in coastal export-oriented industrial centers east of Hanoi, forcing businesses to close, some expected to resume full operations in just a few weeks, executives said.
"Disruptions threaten global supply chains, as Vietnam is home to large enterprises of multinational corporations that mainly supply goods to the United States, Europe and other developed countries," the publication points out.
Elsewhere, in the provinces north of the capital, landslides caused by severe flooding have killed dozens of people.
Among the factories located on the outskirts of the city of about 400,000 people is a large Samsung Electronics plant, which ships about half of its smartphones worldwide from Vietnam.
According to a Reuters eyewitness, there were no signs of flooding at the facility on Wednesday.
