Typhoon kills 14 in Vietnam, another three in mainland China

Houses are submerged in flood after typhoon Yagi hit Yen Bai province, northwestern Vietnam

At least 14 people have died and 176 others injured in Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi slammed the country’s north, state media said Sunday, as officials warned of heavy downpours despite its waning power.

Described by Vietnamese officials as one of the most powerful typhoons to hit the region over the last decade, Yagi left more than 3 million people without electricity in northern Vietnam. It also damaged vital agricultural land, nearly 116,192 hectares where rice and fruits are mostly grown. Hundreds of flights were canceled after four airports were closed.

The typhoon made landfall in Vietnam’s northern coastal provinces of Quang Ninh and Haiphong with wind speeds of up to 149 kilometers per hour on Saturday afternoon. It raged for roughly 15 hours before gradually weakening into a tropical depression early Sunday morning. Vietnam’s meteorological department predicted heavy rain in northern and central provinces and warned of floods in low-lying areas, flash floods in streams and landslides on steep slopes.

Municipal workers along with army and police forces were busy in the capital, Hanoi, clearing uprooted trees, fallen billboards, toppled electricity poles and rooftops that were swept away, while assessing damaged buildings.

Yagi was still a storm when it blew out of the northwestern Philippines into the South China Sea on Wednesday, leaving at least 20 people dead and 26 others missing mostly in landslides and widespread flooding in the acrchipelago nation. It then made its way to China, killing three people and injuring nearly a hundred others, before landing in Vietnam.

The super typhoon swept south of Hong Kong and was moving toward the Chinese island province of Hainan where it was expected to make landfall Friday, forcing many aspects of life in the region to a halt.
Trading on the stock market, bank services and schools were halted in Hong Kong and Macau after the city’s weather authority raised a No. 8 typhoon signal for Typhoon Yagi, the third-highest warning under the city’s weather system.
Yagi, with maximum sustained winds of 230 kilometers per hour near its center, forced more than 250 people to seek refuge at temporary government shelters and led to cancellations of more than 100 flights in the city. Five people were injured and treated at hospitals.
Heavy rain and strong winds overnight felled dozens of trees across the financial hub before the weather gradually calmed on Friday morning. The typhoon signal was downgraded in the afternoon, with public and transportation services slowly resuming.
In Hainan, a tropical holiday island in southern China, residents were bracing for the powerful storm. The province’s meteorological service expected Yagi to make landfall somewhere between the province’s Wenchang city and Xuwen county in neighboring Guangdong province later Friday.
People built sandbag barriers outside buildings to guard against possible floods and reinforced their windows with tape on Thursday, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
The official China Daily said classes, work, transportation and businesses were suspended in parts of the province as early as Wednesday evening. Some tourist attractions were closed and all flights at its international airport in Haikou city were grounded on Friday.

Storms like Typhoon Yagi were “getting stronger due to climate change, primarily because warmer ocean waters provide more energy to fuel the storms, leading to increased wind speeds and heavier rainfall,” said Benjamin Horton, director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore. MDT/AP