Thousands flee Red River shores

Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi evacuated thousands of people living near the swollen Red River as its waters rose to a 20-year high, flooding streets days after Typhoon Yagi battered the country’s north, killing at least 179 people.

Asia’s most powerful typhoon this year, Yagi brought gales and heavy rain as it moved westwards after landfall on Saturday, causing the collapse of a bridge this week while it scythed through provinces along the Red River, the area’s biggest.

“My home is now part of the river,” said Nguyen Van Hung, 56, who lives in a suburb on the banks of the Red River.

Across the country, the typhoon and subsequent landslides and floods have killed 179 people while 145 were missing, the government estimated.

Vietnam’s state-run power utility EVN said on Wednesday that it had cut off power from some flooded parts of the capital due to safety concerns.

Mai Van Khiem, director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, said that the Red River was at its highest in two decades and that more rain was expected over the next two days.

Some schools in Hanoi have told students to stay home for the rest of the week, while thousands of residents of low-lying areas have been evacuated, the government and state media said. Nearer the city centre, charity Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation evacuated its office on Tuesday, after authorities warned of flood risks.

“People were moving frantically, moving their motorbikes, relocating items,” said spokesperson Carlota Torres Lliro, expressing concern for dozens of children and families living in makeshift houses by the river.

EVN said on Wednesday it had stopped discharging water from Hoa Binh hydropower dam, the second largest in northern Vietnam, into Red River tributary, the Da River, to reduce water flows.

Vietnamese authorities also raised concerns on Wednesday about Chinese hydropower plants releasing water into another Red River tributary, the Lo River, known in China as Panlongjiang, with Beijing saying the two countries were co-operating on flood prevention.

Yagi wreaked havoc on many factories and flooded warehouses in coastal export-oriented industrial hubs east of Hanoi, forcing closures, with some only expected to resume full operations after weeks, executives said.

The disruptions threaten global supply chains as Vietnam hosts large operations of multinationals that ship mostly to the US, Europe and other developed nations.

“Many of them are gone with the wind,” said Calvin Nguyen, head of Vietnamese logistics firm WeDo Forwarding Co., referring to products that were to have been delivered to the US and the EU.

The company’s three warehouses in the coastal city of Haiphong had their roofs blown off and were still flooded on Wednesday, he said.

The industry ministry did not reply to a request for comment.

In Haiphong, one of the areas worst hit by the typhoon, 95% of businesses had been expected to resume some activity by Tuesday, the body managing its industrial zones said.

“Many businesses had their roofs blown off, some walls collapsed, gates, fences, signs, camera systems, garages and sliding metal doors were overturned, water flooded into factories,” it said on its website.

Elsewhere, in provinces north of the capital, landslides triggered by heavy floods killed dozens.

“My house’s first floor is completely under the water,” said Nguyen Duc Tam, a 40-year-old resident of Thai Nguyen, a city about 60km from Hanoi. “Now we have no fresh water and electricity,” he said.

Another resident, Hoang Hai Luan, 30, said he had not experienced such flooding in more than 20 years in the area.

“My belongings and possibly those of many others are completely lost.”

Among the factories located on the outskirts of the city of about 400000, is a large facility for Samsung Electronics, which ships about half of its smartphones worldwide from Vietnam. There were no signs of flooding at the facility on Wednesday, a witness said.

In industrial zones hosting factories in Haiphong and the neighbouring province of Quang Ninh, 20 of 150 investors’ plants will be out of service for at least a few weeks, said Bruno Jaspaert, head of the zones.

He expected power consumption there to stay a third below normal for weeks or months, as many companies were busy rebuilding damaged factories.

Cape Times