Storm Bualoi leaves 19 dead, 13 missing, widespread destruction in Vietnam

The Department of Dyke Management and Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, also reported eight people unaccounted for.

These eight included crew members aboard fishing vessel BD 97258 TS, which lost contact with families on Saturday about 110 nautical miles off Gia Lai Province.

The storm damaged or unroofed nearly 105,000 houses, with Ha Tinh Province hardest hit at 79,000, followed by Nghe An Province with 20,000.

About 3,400 homes in Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, and Ha Tinh Provinces were flooded, while more than 2,700 households in Ha Tinh remain isolated.

In Ha Tinh’s Vung Ang Economic Zone, 65,000 square meters of roofing on factories and offices were torn off.

Roughly 9,400 hectares of rice and crops and 1,800 hectares of aquaculture were destroyed.

More than 6,400 meters of riverbanks, seawalls, and embankments were eroded.

Landslides and flooding blocked 163 road crossings across some northern and central provinces, cities like Son La, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, and Da Nang, disrupting traffic.

The storm also toppled over 3,400 power poles, mostly in Ninh Binh, Nghe An, and Ha Tinh, leaving large swathes of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Quang Tri without electricity.

More than 13,000 trees were uprooted, concentrated in Nghe An.

Heavy rains continued to batter northern and north-central provinces, with rainfall totals of 270-330mm recorded in parts of Lao Cai, Phu Tho, Son La, and Thanh Hoa during Monday.

Flood levels on the Red River in Yen Bai and the Ma and Ca Rivers in Thanh Hoa and Nghe An were rising rapidly on Monday night.

Authorities warned floods could exceed alarm level 3 overnight, raising risks of flash floods and landslides in upland areas, and flooding in low-lying zones of Lao Cai, Thanh Hoa, and Ha Tinh.

Storm Bualoi, the 10th to hit the East Vietnam Sea this year, made landfall in Ha Tinh Province, north-central Vietnam in the early hours of Monday.

Hoang Phuc Lam, deputy head of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, described Bualoi as a strong storm which traveled unusually fast at 30-35 kilometers per hour, nearly double the average speed of storms in the East Vietnam Sea.

Upon its landfall, Bualoi raged for up to 12 hours in the Nghe An-Quang Tri area.

Early on Monday afternoon, the storm weakened into a tropical depression and later a low-pressure zone after moving into northern Laos, about 50km from the Vietnam-Laos border, with sustained winds of 39-61 kph.