By Francesco Guarascio and Minh Nguyen
HANOI/HAIPHONG (Reuters) -Hurricane Yagi, Asia’s strongest storm this yr, was downgraded to a tropical melancholy on Sunday, after wreaking havoc in northern Vietnam, the place it broken factories and infrastructure in export-oriented industrial hubs.
Vietnam’s meteorological company issued the downgrade on Sunday however cautioned concerning the ongoing threat of flooding and landslides because the storm, the strongest to hit the nation in a long time, moved westwards.
On Saturday, Yagi disrupted energy provides and telecommunications in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, inflicting intensive flooding, felling 1000’s of timber and damaging properties.
The storm and subsequent landslides killed 18 folks in Vietnam with many nonetheless reportedly lacking at sea, based on preliminary estimates from the federal government and state media, after claiming the lives of 4 folks on the southern Chinese language island of Hainan and 20 within the Philippines, the primary nation it hit per week in the past.
In Haiphong, a Vietnamese coastal metropolis of two million which hosts factories of a number of multinationals, industrial parks remained closed on Sunday, staff and managers instructed Reuters.
One was flooded, and staff mentioned they’d been despatched house after they tried to go to work unaware of the circumstances at their crops as a result of telecommunications networks had not been restored.
“The damage for the factories is really significant. Some have lost roofs or entire front facades,” mentioned Bruno Jaspaert, head of DEEP C industrial zones, which host crops from over 150 buyers in Haiphong and the neighbouring province of Quang Ninh.
He mentioned at the very least 80% of the factories had been broken however the industrial parks had not been flooded.
“It might take a month if things go well before I fully recover from this damage,” mentioned Do Van Truong, a 45-year-old store proprietor in Haiphong, noting the ceiling of his seafood store had collapsed whereas energy and water provides had not but been restored.
A number of highways within the north of the nation have been flooded or significantly disrupted, state media reported, publishing photos and photographs of landslides.
RISK OF FLASH FLOODS
After it made landfall in Vietnam on Saturday afternoon, Yagi triggered waves as excessive as 4 metres (13 ft) in coastal provinces, resulting in prolonged energy and telecommunication outages which have sophisticated harm evaluation, the federal government mentioned.
The meteorological company warned of continued “risk of flash floods” in riverside areas, together with in Hanoi.
As winds subsided, authorities in Hanoi rushed to wash up streets from toppled timber scattered throughout the town centre and different neighbourhoods.
“The storm has devastated the city. Trees fell down on top of people’s houses, cars and people on the street,” mentioned 57-year-old Hanoi resident Hoang Ngoc Nhien.
Hanoi’s Noi Bai worldwide airport, the busiest in northern Vietnam, reopened on Sunday after closing on Saturday morning.
