Three killed as landslide buries houses in central Vietnam

One landslide happened at the Khanh Thanh Nam Village in Cam Lam District at around 1 a.m. when it was raining really hard, local authorities said.

District chairman Nguyen Huu Hao confirmed that the dead were a 52-year-old woman, a 21-year-old woman and a 11-month-old little girl, who were crushed when the landslide struck their house. Three other family members sustained minor injuries.

"I heard a loud noise, and the houses just collapsed. Luckily, I escaped," said Ha Tan Luc, a survivor.

Local authorities have evacuated many villagers to safe areas.

Heavy rains have lashed the central province, which is home to the famous resort town Nha Trang, for several days now, triggering landslides at the Khanh Le Mountain Pass and blocking the National Highway 27 segment that runs from Nha Trang to Da Lat town in the Central Highlands.

Traffic around the local Cu Hin Mountain Pass has also also been paralyzed, jamming the road connecting Nha Trang to the Cam Ranh Airport.

Last month, Khanh Hoa’s famous resort town of Nha Trang, which was badly hit by torrential rains and landslides triggered by storm Toraji turned depression. At least 19 people were killed.

According to the National Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting, central provinces from Nghe An to Khanh Hoa will be battered by heavy downpours from now until next Friday due to effect of a tropical depression and a cold spell from the north.

A report from the Central Steering Committee on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control released late last week said natural disasters, mostly flooding, tropical storms and landslides, had killed 181 people and left 37 others missing as of December 20 this year.

The disasters caused damage worth around VND20 trillion ($858 million), three times lower than last year’s figure of VND60 trillion ($2.6 billion).