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At least five people died in Vietnam after Typhoon Kalmaegi pummelled coastal regions with destructive winds and heavy rain, officials said on Friday, following the storm’s deadly passage through the Philippines where it killed at least 188 people.
The storm made landfall in central Vietnam late on Thursday, uprooting trees, damaging homes, and triggering power outages, before weakening as it moved inland.
Authorities warned of continuing heavy rainfall of up to 200 millimetres in central provinces from Thanh Hoa to Quang Tri and said rising river levels from Hue to Dak Lak could trigger flooding and landslides.
In Gia Lai province, which bore the brunt of the typhoon, shrimp farm owner Nguyen Dinh Sa reported catastrophic losses.
“I went to check them every hour yesterday until evening. I had done everything but could not save them,” Sa, 26, said, lamenting the destruction of around six metric tons of shrimp.
“All my investments are gone. I am so desperate at the moment,” he said. Sa’s two-storey warehouse, used for storing shrimp feed, was briefly submerged due to seven-metre-high waves and strong winds.
The typhoon left a trail of destruction along the coast, toppling trees, scattering shattered glass and roofing sheets, with residents gathering around generators to recharge their phones.
Vietnam’s disaster management agency said seven people were reported injured, and around 2,800 homes were damaged. About 1.3 million people were without electricity, it said.
The state-run Vietnam News Agency said the railway in Quang Ngai had been damaged. The government said it had mobilized more than 268,000 soldiers for search-and-rescue operations and warned of flooding, which could affect agriculture in the Central Highlands, Vietnam’s main coffee-growing region.
Philippines president tours Cebu damage
In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visited evacuation centres on Friday, distributing relief aid and assuring victims of continued government support, after Kalmaegi left 135 people missing and injured 96 others.
“We are very, very sorry,” he told provincial officials in Cebu.
“Most of the victims were carried away by the rushing waters, the sheer volume and speed of the flash floods.”
Kalmaegi is the 13th typhoon to form in the South China Sea this year. Vietnam and the Philippines are highly vulnerable to tropical storms and typhoons due to their locations along the Pacific typhoon belt, regularly experiencing damage and casualties during peak storm seasons.
The Philippines’ civil aviation regulator has placed all area centres and airport operations under heightened alert in preparation for another typhoon, Fung-wong, which is forecast to intensify into a super typhoon before making landfall in the northern Philippines on Sunday evening or early Monday morning.
The forecast calls for landfall in northern Aurora province, with the effects potentially impacting the densely populated capital region of Manila.
