Deadly Typhoon Bualoi devastates Vietnam with floods, high winds, and mass evacuations

A city under water

Hanoi, Vietnam, woke up to stormy skies and flooded streets. Typhoon Bualoi, the country’s most destructive storm of the year, unleashed relentless rain and winds that turned busy roads into rivers. Cars and motorbikes sat stranded with dead engines. Schools closed their gates. Flights were grounded. Trains stopped running.

“Water is flowing into my living room. I have never seen anything like this before," said Hoang Quoc Uy, a resident of the capital, watching as his house filled with muddy floodwater.

Lives lost, homes destroyed

The toll has been rising fast. At least 26 people are dead and more than 20 remain missing. Thousands of families are now without homes. In Ha Tinh province, roofs were torn from houses, while fields of rice and crops disappeared under water. More than 347,000 households lost power as the storm crashed ashore.

In Ninh Binh province, a sudden whirlwind tied to the typhoon killed nine people. In Hue and Thanh Hoa, homes collapsed in the strong winds. Fishermen remain unaccounted for after boats broke free in Quang Tri.

Ngo Thi Loan, 56, stood in waist-deep water inside her house in Nghe An province. “All of my belongings have been damaged, all gone," she said, her roof ripped away by the winds.

A night of fear

Across the country, the sound of tearing roofs and shattering glass kept people awake. In Nghe An, Nguyen Tuan Vinh, sweeping broken tiles from his yard, said it was “one of the strongest" storms he had seen. Another resident, Ho Van Quynh, did not sleep. “I stayed awake the whole night fearing the door would be pulled off by strong winds," he recalled.

Mass evacuations and broken links

More than 53,000 people were evacuated to schools and clinics turned into shelters before the storm hit. Airports in four central provinces were closed, cancelling or delaying nearly 200 flights. Sections of the national highway were cut off. In many places, villages were isolated, with no road access and no power.

Wider region hit

Bualoi’s destruction was not limited to Vietnam. Days earlier, the typhoon struck the Philippines, where at least 27 people were killed, many by drowning or collapsing trees. Hundreds of thousands fled their homes as floods swept through villages.

In Vietnam, the storm has already drawn comparisons to some of the country’s deadliest weather disasters. Just last year, Typhoon Yagi killed hundreds and caused billions in damages. And this year alone, before Bualoi struck, 175 people had already been killed or gone missing in floods and storms.

The city went dark. Then the water rose. And by the time Bualoi moved into Laos, Vietnam was left counting the cost of yet another devastating typhoon.