HANOI: The death toll from a new barrage of torrential rain, flooding and landslides in central Vietnam since the weekend has risen to 41, state media reported on Thursday, with water levels rising further in already inundated towns and villages.
Rainfall exceeded 1,500 mm in several parts of central Vietnam over the past three days. The region is home to a key coffee production belt as well as the country’s most popular beaches, but is highly prone to storms and floods.
A suspension bridge on Da Nhim River in Lam Dong province was swept away on Thursday morning, VietnamNet newspaper reported. A video clip showed the bridge being swallowed by the river in just a few seconds. Reuters could not immediately verify the video.
More than half a million households and businesses faced blackouts after power grids were damaged by the floods, according to the government. Traders said the floodwaters were hampering the coffee harvest in the region.
The national weather forecast agency warned of more flooding and landslides to come on Friday, with heavy rain set to continue in the region.
Photographs shared in state media reports showed residents, including children, sitting on the roofs of flooded houses and calling for help via social media platforms.
“Any group out there please help! We’ve been sitting on the roof since 10 p.m. last night, including kids and adults,” a resident of Khanh Hoa province posted on a local Facebook page. Alongside the post was a photograph of a group of people sitting on the metal roof of a flooded house as the rain lashed down.
The photos also showed several residential areas in Khanh Hoa, Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces submerged in deep water.
Naval forces have been deployed to help stranded citizens in Khanh Hoa, the Vietnam News Agency reported, adding that floodwaters had reached record highs in many areas.
At least nine people were missing, and floods have inundated more than 52,000 houses and over 15,000 hectares of crops, according to a report from the government’s disaster management agency, cited by online newspaper VnExpress.
A seven-year-old girl was rescued late on Wednesday in Da Lat after being buried by a landslide, the Nhan Dan newspaper reported.
The landslide, triggered by heavy rain, knocked down and buried part of the house where the girl was staying.
A photo accompanying the report showed the girl’s hand sticking out from a pile of soil, rock and broken concrete as the rescuers arrived.
She was pulled out after an hour and a half with a broken leg and rushed to the hospital. She is now in stable condition, according to the report.
Death toll rises to 41 in central Vietnam flooding, more heavy rain forecast
https://arab.news/vkk32
Death toll rises to 41 in central Vietnam flooding, more heavy rain forecast
- Rainfall exceeds 1,500 mm in three days in central Vietnam
- More than 52,000 houses and 15,000 hectares of farmland flooded
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
