HÒA BÌNH — At least 18 people were buried early on Thursday morning after a landslide hit the northern mountainous Hòa Bình Province’s Phú Cường Commune.

The landslide occurred when the victims were sleeping.

The local rescue team found nine bodies, and is working hard to locate more victims but the rescue activities are proving difficult due to soil and rocks, triggered by the landslide and heavy rains, at the scene.

Head of the provincial Transport Department, Bùi Văn Thắng, said all local roads were inundated following heavy rains for several days. The section of National Highway 6 running through the province was also flooded by rainwater, and vehicle movement was slow.

“The risk of a landslide along this section is very high,” Thắng said.

In a related movement, statistics from the local administration revealed that by 7am on Thursday, 17 people were killed, 13 were missing and 9 were injured following heavy rains caused by a tropical low-pressure system in the province.

Heavy rains also damaged over 1,000 houses and destroyed more than 4,000ha of crop.

Heavy rains continue, flood over highest in 3 decades

The National Centre for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting on Thursday morning said heavy rains are predicted to continue hitting the provinces of Thanh Hóa, Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh until Friday morning.

In the meantime, the flood on Hoàng Long River in northern Ninh Bình Province reached 5.53 metres at 6am on Thursday, higher than the river’s historic flood in 1985, the centre said. The water level of Hồng (Red) River’s downstream was also rapidly rising.

The centre warned that inundation would continue hitting Thanh Hóa Province because floods were on the horizon for the three local rivers of Bưởi, Chu and Mã.

Districts of Mường Lát, Thạch Thành, Quan Hóa and Quan Sơn, as well as Lang Chánh, Bá Thước, Cẩm Thủy and Thường Xuân, in addition to Yên Định, and Thọ Xuân were put on high alert, the centre said.

In a related movement, a new tropical low-pressure system, which was predicted to gain strength to form as a tropical storm, was heading towards the East Sea.

By 7am on Thursday, the tropical low-pressure system was at 420km to the east of the Philippines’ Luzon Island.  It was moving west-northwest at 25km. — VNS