People worked to bring boats ashore to ensure safety as Typhoon Kajiki neared in Thanh Hoa, Vietnam, Monday. Authorities in Vietnam have evacuated more than 500,000 people from central coastal provinces. Photo by Vietnam News Agency/EPA
A powerful typhoon made landfall in northeast Vietnam, prompting schools and airports to close and prompting people to evacuate.
Typhoon Kajiki threatens the country with destructive winds and storm surges. It downed trees and brought heavy rains to China’s Hainan Island on Sunday before moving over the Gulf of Tonkin overnight with sustained wind speeds of 103 mph, according to Vietnam’s national weather forecast agency. It’s equal to a Category 2 Atlantic hurricane.
More than 586,000 residents have been evacuated. Schools and public buildings have been converted into temporary shelters, according to Vietnamese authorities. Those still at home have been told not to leave their homes between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. local time.
Kajiki made landfall in the central provinces of Thanh Hoa and Nghe An late afternoon. Thanh Hoa is about 103 miles south of Hanoi and includes the city of Vinh.
More than 400 communes across six provinces have been put on alert for a risk of flash floods and landslides. Airports in Thanh Hoa and Quang Binh provinces are closed. Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet have cancelled multiple flights.
Ahead of landfall, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh warned the storm could bring heavy rainfall, flash floods and landslides, especially in the low-lying coastal areas, according to Vietnamese state media.
Typhoons, hurricanes and cyclones are all large, destructive, rotating storms. Their names only change according to location. Typhoons are formed over the north-west Pacific Ocean.
Typhoon Kajiki comes less than a year after Vietnam was hit by Typhoon Yagi, its most powerful storm in 30 years. Yagi caused billions in damage in the north and left 1.5 million people without power.
The storm swept through northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar in September, killing more than 500 people across the region, according to official figures.
Yagi hit as the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane. While Kajiki is not that strong, it is still expected to bring destructive winds and potential flooding.
