HANOI, November 7 (Reuters): At least five people were killed in Vietnam after Typhoon Kalmaegi battered coastal regions with destructive winds and heavy rainfall, officials said on Friday. The storm hit the country’s central provinces late Thursday, following its deadly rampage through the Philippines, where it claimed at least 188 lives and left scores missing.
Kalmaegi made landfall in central Vietnam, uprooting trees, damaging homes, and triggering widespread power outages before weakening as it moved inland. Authorities warned of up to 200 millimetres of rain in the provinces from Thanh Hoa to Quang Tri, with the risk of flooding and landslides in areas between Hue and Dak Lak due to rising river levels.
‘All my investments are gone’
In Gia Lai province, shrimp farmer Nguyen Dinh Sa, 26, described catastrophic losses.
“I went to check every hour yesterday until evening. I had done everything but could not save them,” Sa said, adding that around six metric tons of shrimp were destroyed. His two-story warehouse was briefly submerged by seven-metre-high waves, resulting in losses of about 1 billion dong ($38,000).
Across coastal areas, Kalmaegi’s winds toppled trees, shattered windows, and ripped off roofs. Residents gathered around generators to charge phones, as power cuts affected around 1.3 million people. Vietnam’s disaster management agency also reported seven injuries and damage to nearly 2,800 homes, while state media noted railway infrastructure damage in Quang Ngai province.
The government deployed over 268,000 soldiers for search-and-rescue operations, warning that persistent rainfall could impact agriculture in the Central Highlands, Vietnam’s key coffee-producing region. Traders said on Friday that rains had eased and coffee crops remained largely unharmed.