Typhoon Rammasun’s total death toll climbed to at least 118 Monday, with its latest casualties reported in northern Vietnam and southern China after fierce winds and heavy rains claimed at least 94 lives in the Philippines.
In northern Vietnam, the typhoon made landfall Saturday morning, unleashing floods that killed at least eight people and affected more than 6,000 homes. The typhoon damaged 3,300 hectares of rice and other crops and disrupted traffic in the region, according to the Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control.
Lang Son province, about 150 kilometers northeast of Hanoi, suffered the heaviest casualtieswith four deadas well as property damage, according to the committee.
“Water levels rose to the roofs of houses in many parts of Lang Son over the weekend, though the flooding has begun to subside today as the rains have eased,” Nguyen Huu Chien, chief of the office of the Lang Son provincial People’s Committee, told The Wall Street Journal.
“We have deployed more than 5,300 solders, policemen and volunteers to help affected people deal with the flood consequences,” he said.
Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting warned on Monday that rainy conditions could cause more flash floods and landslides in northern Vietnam.
Rammasun, which means “thunder god” in Thai, battered the Philippines and southern China earlier in the week before making landfall near the Vietnam-China border Saturday morning.
Chinese authorities reported significant damage across southern provinces on Monday. As of Monday morning, at least 26 people had died and 25 more were missing across the southern provinces of Guangdong, Hainan and Yunnan and in the region of Guangxi, according to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs. The ministry estimated economic losses across those provinces in excess of 25 billion yuan ($4.02 billion).
But the Philippines suffered the most devastation.
The Philippines’ National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said that as of Sunday the typhoon had killed at least 94 people in the country, injured 437 others and left six missing.
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