HANOI: Heavy rain, severe flooding and landslides in Vietnam have killed at least 90 people in the last week, authorities said Sunday, leaving others stranded on rooftops and mountain roadways blocked.
Relentless rain has lashed south-central Vietnam since late October and popular holiday destinations have been hit by several rounds of flooding, with economic losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Whole sections of coastal Nha Trang city were inundated last week, while deadly landslides struck highland passes around the Da Lat tourist hub.
In the hard-hit mountainous province of Dak Lak, 61-year-old farmer Mach Van Si said the floodwaters left him and his wife stranded on their sheet-metal rooftop for two nights.
“Our neighborhood was completely destroyed. Nothing was left. Everything was covered in mud,” he said on Sunday.
By the time they climbed a ladder to their roof, Si said he was no longer scared.
“I just thought we were going to die because there was no way out,” he said.
More than 60 deaths, of the 90 recorded since November 16, were in Dak Lak, where tens of thousands of homes were inundated, the environment ministry said in a statement.
‘Big soggy mess’
At the Tuy Hoa market in the province, the floodwaters have receded but Vo Huu Du, 40, said some of the hats, bags and shoes she sells were still soaked or lying in mud.
“My goods look like one big soggy mess,” she said. “I don’t even know where to start.”
She and other vendors once considered five centimeters (two inches) off the ground a safe level to raise their merchandise to avoid flood damage — but no more.
“All these years, the highest water level back in 1993 only reached our ankles,” said Du. “But now the water has come in over one meter (three feet) high.”
“All the vendors are devastated, not just me,” she added.
Ceramics seller Nguyen Van Thoai, 60, gestured to piles of damaged goods to be cleared from paths between vendor stalls, calling it “a real loss.”
“I don’t even know where to put all this market stock,” he said. “We might need to clean it for a month and still won’t be done.”
More than 80,000 hectares (200,000 acres) of rice and other crops across Dak Lak and four other provinces were damaged in the last week, with over 3.2 million livestock or poultry killed or washed away by floodwaters.
Authorities have used helicopters to airdrop aid to communities cut off by flooding and landslides, with the government deploying tens of thousands of personnel to deliver clothing, water-purification tablets, instant noodles and other supplies to affected areas, state outlet Tuoi Tre News said.
Several locations on national highways remained blocked on Sunday due to flooding or landslides, according to the environment ministry, and some railway sections were still suspended.
The ministry estimated economic losses of $343 million across five provinces due to the floods.
Natural disasters have left 279 people dead or missing in Vietnam and caused more than $2 billion in damage between January and October, according to the national statistics office.
The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientists have identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.
Vietnam flooding kills at least 90
https://arab.news/8x3rp
Vietnam flooding kills at least 90
- Relentless rain has lashed south-central Vietnam since late October
- Popular holiday destinations have been hit by several rounds of flooding
Shooter kills 9 at Canadian school and residence
- The shooter was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound
- A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries
TORONTO: A shooter killed nine people and wounded dozens more at a secondary school and a residence in a remote part of western Canada on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
The attack occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” by the “horrific acts of violence” and announced he was suspending plans to travel to the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, where he had been set to hold talks with allies on transatlantic defense readiness.
Police said an alert was issued about an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon.
As police searched the school, they found six people shot dead. A seventh person with a gunshot wound died en route to hospital.
Separately, police found two more bodies at a residence in the town.
The residence is “believed to be connected to the incident,” police said.
At the school, “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self?inflicted injury,” police said.
Police have not yet released any information about the age of the shooter or the victims.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and the profound impact this tragedy has had on families, students, staff, and our entire town,” the municipality of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement.
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things... just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
‘Heartbreak’
While mass shootings are extremely rare in Canada, last April, a vehicle attack that targeted a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver killed 11 people.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the latest violence “unimaginable.”
Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said it was “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee, whose athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, said Wednesday it was “heartbroken by the news of the horrific school shooting.”
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Tumbler Ridge, a quiet town with roughly 2,400 residents, is more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Vancouver, British Columbia’s largest city.
“There are no words sufficient for the heartbreak our community is experiencing tonight,” the municipality said.
