Vietnam’s Chief of General staff Phan Van Giang and military officers carry the coffin of General Nguyen Van Man who died of a landslide on a rescue mission at a hydropower plant, during his funeral ceremony in Thua Thien Hue province, Vietnam October 18, 2020. Do Truong/VNA via REUTERS.
HANOI — Vietnamese soldiers with heavy machinery and rescue dogs searched on Monday for the last remaining troops buried under a mudslide, after recovering 18 bodies from the latest in a week of deadly landslides caused by unrelenting rains.
Floods and mudslides during October have killed at least 93 people in central Vietnam and left 30 missing, among those four military, which has lost 29 personnel to the adverse weather, in what could be its highest number of peace-time casualties. Four bodies were found on Monday.
The landslide early on Sunday in the province Quang Tri buried 22 soldiers and was the fourth incident of its kind in the space of six days in central Vietnam, which is expecting more intense rainfall in the coming days.
The military, which plays a key role in Vietnam’s disaster response, has sent hundreds of rescuers, heavy equipment and search dogs to help the mission as the government tackles some of its worst floods in years.
In neighboring Thua Thien Hue province, rescuers battled driving rain in search of at least 15 construction workers missing after a landslide a week ago. Eleven soldiers sent to find them were killed by a separate mudslide.
A family of six was killed when mud buried their house as they slept late on Saturday in Quang Tri province.
Floods in the region have inundated more than 120,000 houses, cut off traffic and forced schools to close. State media showed images of people in long-tail boats next to houses with water at roof level.
State television showed footage of people moving their cattle at midnight and being evacuated from their homes, among them some older residents who said it reminded them of the wartime era nearly five decades ago.