Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
Typhoon Kalmaegi slammed into Vietnam on Thursday, forcing authorities to cancel hundreds of flights and order people to stay indoors, two days after the storm started sweeping across the Philippines, killing at least 114 people.
Kalmaegi hit packing winds of up to 149 kilometres per hour, according to the national weather forecaster. The typhoon blew roofs off houses and downed trees and telegraph poles and whipped up waves as high as 10 metres (30 feet) as it hit the central region’s coast, the agency added.
Officials closed six airports and the government said more than 260,000 people in Gia Lai province had been moved to safety.
Kalmaegi is the 13th storm to hit Vietnam this year, and among the most powerful.
The government said it had placed more than 268,000 soldiers on standby for search and rescue operations. It warned of floods in low-lying areas and impacts on agriculture, including in the Central Highlands, the main coffee-growing region.
As the storm approached, hotels and homes along Cua Dai beach near the ancient UNESCO-listed town of Hoi An were shuttered.
Near the coastal city of Hue, farmers were still recovering from floods this week that killed 47 people.
Rice farmer Nguyen Van Rin, 42, said the last floods had drowned his livestock and poultry. “Kalmaegi will flood us for the fourth time and I am afraid it will be quite bad,” he said after guiding his boat across a road as vehicles moved slowly through the water.
Vietnam’s aviation authorities said operations at eight airports, including the international airport in Da Nang, are likely to be affected. Airlines and local authorities have been urged to closely monitor the storm’s progress to ensure passenger safety.
Vietnam’s ancient town of Hoi An and the nearby city of Hue were already in recovery mode after flooding that began at the end of last week, killing at least 35 people.
State of emergency declared in Philippines
In the Philippines, the typhoon’s onslaught affected nearly two million people and displaced more than 560,000 villagers, including nearly 450,000 who were evacuated to emergency shelters, the Office of Civil Defence said. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared a state of emergency for the country on Thursday.
In the Philippines’ hardest-hit province of Cebu, the scale of the destruction became clearer as floodwaters receded to reveal flattened homes, overturned vehicles and streets choked with debris.
More than 200,000 people were evacuated in the Philippines ahead of Kalmaegi hitting on Tuesday.
Some people in Cebu returned to find their homes destroyed on Thursday, while others started the arduous cleanup, scraping mud from their houses and streets.
“The challenge now is debris clearing.… These need to be cleared immediately, not only to account for the missing who may be among the debris or may have reached safe areas but also to allow relief operations to move forward,” Raffy Alejandro, a senior civil defence official, told DZBB radio.
Residents of Talisay in the Cebu province of the Philippines are taking stock of their destroyed homes after Typhoon Kalmaegi barrelled into the country, setting off flash floods and killing over 100 people. ‘We were not able to save anything. The flood took even our rice. Everything,’ one resident said.
“Everything was destroyed. Only the flooring remained. Everything was washed out. We have no belongings,” said Liza Becus as she returned to what was left of the shack she had built in Talisay City in Cebu.
She gathered metal and iron sheets to sell so she could buy rice to feed her seven children.
“My children have nothing,” she said. “Their uniforms, bags, and all of our things are gone.”
Even as Typhoon Kalmaegi, locally named Tino, exited the Philippine monitoring zone, weather forecasters were tracking a brewing storm east of Mindanao that could strengthen into a typhoon, raising concerns for potential impacts early next week.
The devastation from Kalmaegi, the 20th storm to hit the Philippines this year, comes just over a month after a magnitude 6.9-earthquake struck northern Cebu, killing dozens and displacing thousands.
