By Khanh Vu and Minh Nguyen
HANOI/HAIPHONG (Reuters) – Typhoon Yagi, Asia’s strongest typhoon this year, has killed dozens of people in northern Vietnam and caused widespread destruction to the west.
According to Vietnam’s natural disaster management agency, 35 people have died and 24 are missing, mainly due to landslides and floods caused by the typhoon.
The typhoon hit the northeastern coast of Vietnam on Saturday, home to large manufacturing operations of local and foreign companies, and the meteorological agency downgraded it to a tropical depression on Sunday.
It knocked out power to millions of homes and businesses, flooded highways, knocked out telecommunications networks, toppled a medium-sized bridge and thousands of trees, and halted economic activity in many industrial centers.
Managers and workers at industrial parks and factories in the coastal city of Haiphong, a coastal city of two million, said on Monday they were without power and trying to save equipment from the rain in factories whose roofs were blown off by flying sheets of metal.
“Everyone is scrambling to make the sites safe and dry up stocks,” said Bruno Jaspaert, head of DEEP C industrial zones, which host more than 150 investors’ factories in Haiphong and neighboring Quang Ninh province.
According to photos and Reuters witnesses, the walls of the South Korean LG Electronics factory in the city of Haiphong collapsed.
LG Electronics, a major manufacturer of home appliances and consumer electronics, acknowledged the damage in its production area, noting that there were no casualties among its employees and that a warehouse containing refrigerators and washing machines was flooded.
“There was a lot of damage,” Hong Sun, chairman of the South Korean Business Association in Vietnam, said when asked about the typhoon’s impact on Korean factories in coastal areas.
The manager of the leased factories confirmed extensive roof damage and prolonged power outages in the northern states.
A bridge collapsed in Phu Tho province on Monday, authorities said.
“It’s usually a busy bridge, a major bridge in the state,” said a senior official of the state’s transportation department, adding that there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The weather agency warned of more flooding and landslides, noting that rainfall varied between 208 millimeters and 433 millimeters (8.2 inches and 17.1 inches) in several parts of the northern region over the past 24 hours.
State power provider EVN said more than 5.7 million customers lost power over the weekend as dozens of power lines were down, but about 75% of those affected had been restored on Monday.
