As 400,000 people in coastal communities await emergency assistance after first deadly cyclone, aid workers warn Typhoon Kaikui will inflict further misery

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Almost 400,000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance following a typhoon that has devastated some of the poorest communities in Vietnam, pummelling homes and destroying water supplies.

Typhoon Damrey made landfall on 4 November in the country’s south-central coastal region, with winds of 135km an hour. At least 100 people have died, according to Vietnam’s disaster management authority.

A further 18 people remain missing following days of torrential rains that left some areas submerged in three meters of water.

As communities struggle to recover, another tropical storm, Haikui, is building in the South China Sea and is expected to hit Vietnam within the next 48 hours.



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“This typhoon [Damrey] caused severe damage to large areas,” said Hung Ha Nguyen, community safety and resilience manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “It is the strongest storm to make landfall into Khanh Hoa province and the south-central region in the last 20 years. The typhoon has caused major damage to shelters and livelihoods.”

About 4 million people across 14 provinces in central and south Vietnam are thought to have been affected by the storm, including 381,000 people in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the IFRC. The storm has destroyed homes and inundated vast swaths of agricultural land, damaging crops.

“According to our field assessment teams, there is little support on the ground,” said Hung Ha Nguyen. “The government has committed to support 3,400 tonnes of rice to affected people, but in order to reach the affected people it might take weeks or days.”

Melanie Ogle, disaster risk management delegate for the IFRC, said: “There have been wide power outages, a lot of areas are cut off and there’s a huge number of people affected.”

Ogle said there was an urgent need for emergency shelter as well as sanitation equipment, such as water purification tablets, to prevent the outbreak of disease.

“It doesn’t take very long in tropical conditions [for disease to spread] where there has been flooding and contamination of water sources, especially if there’s no hygiene promotion going on,” she said. “There’s a risk of dengue fever, malaria, typhoid and influenza.”

Play Video 1:37 Several dead as Typhoon Damrey batters Vietnam – video

Unicef, the UN children’s fund, said there are about 1 million children live in the areas worst affected by the storm, many of whom have missed out on school as a result.

“This storm has hit some of the poorest provinces in the country. A lot of farmers have had their fields destroyed, or their harvest and crops damaged,” said Louis Vigneault-Dubois, a spokesman for Unicef in Vietnam.



“These families are living on the edge, faced with such catastrophic events they’re going to struggle over the next couple of months, and it will impact their capacity to feed their children,” he said.



About 25,000 hectares (61,750 acres) of agricultural land, including 10,000 hectares of rice fields, have been inundated. A further 25,000 marine cages, used for fishing, have also been destroyed, according to Vietnam’s central steering committee for natural disaster prevention and control.

More than 120,000 houses have been destroyed or damaged in the storm, which hit areas of Khanh Hoa, Phu Yen and Binh Dinh provinces the hardest. Areas in at least five provinces are thought to remain underwater.

Da Nang, a coastal city in central Vietnam hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference attended by Donald Trump, suffered minor damage.

Damrey is the 12th and deadliest typhoon to hit Vietnam this year. Last month, the country experienced deadly flooding in which 75 people were killed and 28 reported missing. Aid workers fear typhoon Haikui will bring further misery over the weekend. The provinces of Quang Tri, Thue Thien Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa are braced for additional rainfall and winds up to 111 km an hour.

