Vietnam flooding kills at least 90

“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 told AFP. “I don’t even know where to start.”

She and other vendors once considered 5cm 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 1m 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 80,000ha 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 US$343 million across five provinces due to the floods.

Natural disasters have left 279 people dead or missing in Vietnam and caused more than US$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.