Deadly Typhoon Kalmaegi ravages Vietnam, Philippines

AFP/APP

Vietnam: Typhoon Kalmaegi churned across Vietnam early Friday, claiming five more lives after its devastating passage through the Philippines, where the death toll rose to 188.

Kalmaegi unleashed record rains and flooding in central Philippines this week, sweeping away cars, trucks, and shipping containers before lashing Vietnam late Thursday.

“The roof (second floor) of my house was just blown away,” said Nguyen Van Tam, a 42-year-old fisherman in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province, where the storm made landfall packing sustained winds of up to 149 kilometres (92 miles) per hour, according to the Environment Ministry.

“We were all safe, (but) the typhoon was really terrible, so many trees fallen,” he added, noting that his boat had survived intact.

Vietnamese authorities were still assessing the damage on Friday morning, but the Environment Ministry reported five dead and 57 houses collapsed in Gia Lai and neighbouring Dak Lak provinces. Nearly 3,000 more homes had their roofs blown off or were damaged, while 11 boats or ships sank.

In the streets along Gia Lai’s Quy Nhon beach, AFP journalists saw rescue workers and soldiers working with residents to clear uprooted trees, remove debris, and collect sheet-metal roofs blown away in the night.

“This was a very big typhoon that hit us,” said Tran Ngo An, 64. “This was the second time I witnessed such a typhoon. The other one was ten years ago or so, but not that strong as compared to this.”

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The state power company said 1.6 million clients lost power as the typhoon smashed the central coast, but service to a third of them had been restored by Friday morning.

The fast-moving storm had already churned inland by morning with significantly weakened winds, though heavy rain was still forecast for much of the central coast, the national weather bureau said.

Vietnam lies in one of the world’s most active tropical cyclone regions and is typically affected by about ten typhoons or storms a year — but Kalmaegi was the 13th of 2025. Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful due to human-driven climate change. Warmer oceans allow typhoons to strengthen rapidly, while a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, resulting in heavier rainfall.

Relentless rains

Kalmaegi had battered the islands of Cebu and Negros in the Philippines before swooping back out to sea. Floodwaters described as unprecedented rushed through Cebu province’s hardest-hit towns and cities, where the search for missing people continues.

Philippine authorities raised the death toll to 188 on Thursday, with 135 still missing.

The typhoon struck central Vietnam as the region was still reeling from more than a week of flooding and record rains that killed at least 47 people and submerged centuries-old historic sites.

Heavy rains starting in late October drenched the former imperial capital Hue and the ancient town of Hoi An — both UNESCO-listed sites — turning streets into canals and flooding tens of thousands of homes.

Up to 1.7 metres (5 feet 6 inches) of rain fell over a single 24-hour period, breaking national records.

With more than 3,200 kilometres of coastline and a network of 2,300 rivers, Vietnam faces a high risk of flooding. Before Kalmaegi, natural disasters had already left 279 people dead or missing this year and caused more than $2 billion in damage, according to Vietnam’s national statistics office.