Devastating Floods Continue for Days in Central Vietnam

Tropical cyclone 06W, which hovered off the Vietnamese coast for several days, briefly attained tropical storm status before being downgraded to a tropical depression. This system carried lots of heavy rainfall into the flooded area from the South China Sea, with many of the worst hit areas experiencing flash flood conditions. The system dissipated as it moved out of the sea and over land.

GLIDE number assigned for this event: FL-2007-000122-VNM

The activation of the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” for this event is identified as Call No. 170.

Left: The map shows the districts, in green, in central Vietnam’s Dak Lak and Lam Dong provinces where the deadly flooding has been most severe for several days. Right: The highlighted area shows the position of Dak Lak and Lam Dong provinces in Vietnam. (Images: PDC). See larger images.

Pacific Disaster Center asked the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to activate the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters” for the ongoing flooding event in Vietnam which began on August 4. On August 8, the Charter was activated, and PDC was nominated to manage the collecting and dissemination of data products for relief purposes.

According to the Earth Resource Observation and Science (EROS) data center at the USGS, heavy rains and floods had already killed at least eight people and left another 15 missing by August 6, after three days of heavy rainfall. The major tropical storm system was stalled off the coast of Vietnam at the time. Flooding from the still-offshore storm had inundated nearly 200 homes.

On August 8, ReliefWeb reported that the death toll had risen to 32 and that thousands had been displaced. Vital north-south railway transportation had also been cut off. While direct damage from the rainfall was largely in Dak Lak and Lam Dong provinces, Reuters AlertNet said that the province of Quang Binh 490 km (300 miles) south of Hanoi suffered severe flooding as the Gianh River rose, and people in Ha Tinh province also died from lightning strikes and flooding.

The storm has passed, but property damage, injury and fatalities are still being assessed and, as the rivers flood before normalizing, all storm effects are likely to rise sharply.

Left: Flooding from a tropical storm has washed away hundreds, perhaps thousands of homes in central Vietnam. (Image: AP). Right: While rural and farming areas, including coffee-farming highlands, were hard hit by the flooding, landslides and other damage related to the severe storm that hung off Vietnam’s coast for several days, urban areas suffered as well. (Image: AP Photo/Pat Roque).

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