HANOI: Typhoon Yagi, Asia's most powerful storm this year, left dozens dead in northern Vietnam and caused widespread damage to infrastructure and factories as it moved west, preliminary government estimates showed on Monday.
The death toll in Vietnam from the Yagi lightning strike has risen to 59, state media reported Monday.
The typhoon made landfall on Saturday on Vietnam's northeastern coast, home to major manufacturing operations of domestic and foreign companies. It was downgraded to a tropical depression on Sunday, but the weather agency warned on Monday of more flooding and landslides.
Yagi cut power to millions of homes and businesses, flooded roads, disrupted telecommunications networks, toppled a medium-sized bridge and thousands of trees, and paralyzed economic activity in many industrial centers.
Managers and workers at industrial parks and factories in Haiphong, a coastal city of two million, said Monday they had no power and were trying to salvage equipment from plants where sheet metal roofs had been torn off as more rain was expected.
“Everyone is working hard to ensure the safety of the sites and to deplete stocks,” said Bruno Jaspaert, head of DEEP C's industrial zones, which house plants of more than 150 inverters in Haiphong and neighbouring Quang Ninh province.
The walls of a LG Electronics 066570.KS factory in Haiphong, South Korea, have collapsed.
LG Electronics, a major maker of home appliances and consumer electronics, said there was damage to its production plant but no casualties among its employees. It added that a warehouse with refrigerators and washing machines had been flooded.
“There was a lot of damage,” said Hong Sun, chairman of the South Korean business association in Vietnam, when asked about the typhoon's impact on Korean factories in coastal areas.
A manager at rented factories confirmed widespread damage to roofs and prolonged power outages in northern provinces.
A bridge in Phu Tho province collapsed on Monday, authorities said.
“This is normally a very busy bridge, a key bridge in the province,” said a senior official in the province's transport department, adding that there were no reports of casualties yet.
Authorities said their initial investigations suggested there were eight vehicles on the bridge when it collapsed.
The weather agency warned of more flooding and landslides, and said heavy rain and winds were expected late on Monday in the capital Hanoi, a city of 8.5 million people.
State energy provider EVN said more than 5.7 million customers were left without power over the weekend as dozens of power lines snapped, but electricity was restored to nearly 75% of those affected on Monday.
