Vietnam : Floods Claim 90 Lives, Devastate Southern Provinces
Hanoi – Torrential rains and landslides have pushed the death toll from severe flooding in southern Vietnam to 90, with 12 individuals still unaccounted for, according to a statement from the Environment Ministry issued on Sunday.
The downpours, which began battering the south-central region in late October, have repeatedly submerged popular tourist spots. Last week, entire neighborhoods in the coastal city of Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa Province were submerged under floodwaters, while destructive slides blocked mountain roads near the highland resort area of Da Lat.
In the severely affected mountainous Dak Lak Province, resident Mach Van Si, a 61-year-old farmer, recounted his harrowing escape to AFP on Sunday. He and his wife spent two nights perched on their corrugated metal roof as waters surged through their community. “Our entire neighborhood is in ruins—nothing remains untouched, all buried under layers of mud,” Mr. Si said. By the time they scaled a ladder to safety, panic had given way to resignation. “I figured that was it; there was simply no escape,” he added.
The Environment Ministry reported that over 60 of the fatalities since November 16 occurred in Dak Lak alone, where flooding overwhelmed tens of thousands of homes. As of Sunday, four communes in the province remained underwater. Agricultural losses were staggering: more than 80,000 hectares of rice fields and other crops across Dak Lak and four neighboring provinces were ruined in the past week, alongside the deaths or washout of over 3.2 million heads of livestock and poultry.
In response, authorities mobilized helicopters to deliver emergency supplies to isolated villages severed by floods and debris. The government dispatched tens of thousands of workers to distribute essentials like clothing, water purification tablets, and instant noodles, as reported by State media outlet Tuoi Tre News. In Khanh Hoa Province, raging waters demolished two suspension bridges last week, stranding numerous households, the outlet noted, quoting local officials.
Transportation networks continued to suffer disruptions on Sunday, with sections of national highways obstructed by floods or landslides, per the Environment Ministry. Some rail lines were halted, and over 129,000 households lacked electricity—a sharp drop from more than a million affected the previous week. Preliminary assessments pegged economic damages at $343 million in the five hardest-hit provinces.
This crisis caps a year of relentless natural calamities in Vietnam, where disasters have claimed 279 lives and inflicted over $2 billion in losses from January through October, data from the National Statistics Office shows. The Southeast Asian country typically endures intense monsoon rains from June to September, but experts link the rising ferocity of such events to climate change driven by human activity.