Thousands flee floods in Hanoi in Vietnam

Thousands of people were evacuated from low-lying areas of the Vietnamese capital Hanoi as the Red River reached its highest level in two decades, flooding the streets.

By Wednesday, the swollen river's floodwaters had reached a height of one meter in parts of the city, forcing some residents to cross their neighborhoods by boat.

Power supplies have been cut off in some districts for safety reasons and flood alerts are in place in ten of Hanoi's 30 administrative districts, state media reported.

Vietnam is still suffering from the effects of Typhoon Yagi, which devastated the north and claimed at least 179 lives. Floods and landslides in northern Vietnam are the main causes of death, the government said.

“This is the worst flooding I have ever experienced,” Hanoi resident Tran Le Quyen told Reuters. “Yesterday morning it was dry. Now the whole street is flooded. We couldn't sleep last night.”

Yagi was initially classified as a super typhoon – the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane – but was later downgraded to a tropical depression. It has continued to wreak havoc in Vietnam since making landfall on Saturday.

It was described as the strongest typhoon in Asia this year.

“My home is now part of the river,” Nguyen Van Hung, who lives in a neighborhood on the banks of the Red River, told Reuters.

An entire village, Lang Nu in the northern province of Lao Cai, was swept away by flash floods on Tuesday. At least 30 people were declared dead, while hundreds of soldiers were sent to the village to search for those still missing.

Hoang Thi Bay, one of the 63 survivors from the remote mountain community, told AFP she avoided being washed away by holding on to a pillar.

“I looked out the window and saw a huge country coming toward me,” she said.

“I ran into our kitchen and clung to a concrete pole. Our wooden stilt house was destroyed.”

A hydroelectric power plant in the northwestern province of Yen Bai is also being closely monitored by the authorities as an enormous influx of water into the reservoir around the dam has raised concerns that it could collapse.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoang Hiep said on Wednesday the hydroelectric plant was “safe” but urged residents in the area to stay in shelters as it could take up to two days for water levels to return to an “acceptable level”.

Yagi has left a trail of devastation in the north of the country over the past four days. On Monday a busy bridge collapsedTen cars and two scooters fell into the Red River.

The storm also ripped roofs off buildings, uprooted trees and left major damage to infrastructure and factories in the north.

Before the typhoon reached Vietnam, 24 people were killed in southern China and the Philippines.

Scientists warn that typhoons may bring higher wind speeds and more intense rainfall as the world warms, but the impact of climate change on individual storms is complicated.

Additional reporting from BBC Vietnamese