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Typhoon Kalmaegi has slammed into Vietnam, 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 — packing winds of up to 149 km/h, according to the national weather forecaster — blew roofs off houses and downed trees and telegraph poles.
It whipped up waves as high as 10 metres 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.
Tropical Storm Kalmaegi has become the 13th cyclone to strike Vietnam this year, ranking among the most intense storms to impact the region.
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.
In the vicinity of the coastal city of Hue, agricultural communities are still grappling with the aftermath of recent floods that resulted in the tragic loss of 47 lives.
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.
In the Philippines, the scale of the Kalmaegi’s destruction became clearer on Thursday as floodwaters receded in its hardest-hit province of Cebu, revealing flattened homes, overturned vehicles and streets choked with debris.
There were 127 people still reported missing as of late on Thursday and attempts to distribute aid and find bodies were hampered by the scale of the damage left by Kalmaegi, the 20th storm to hit the Philippines this year.
The typhoon’s devastation in Cebu comes just over a month after a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the holiday island, killing dozens and displacing thousands.
Meanwhile, meteorologists are closely monitoring a developing weather system located east of Mindanao, a Philippine island. This storm has the potential to escalate into a typhoon, with projections suggesting it could hit the Philippines early next week.
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.
“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.”
