RECORD YEAR
“2025 has been the year with the most unusual natural disasters in history,” Hoang Duc Cuong, deputy director of the environment ministry’s meteorology and hydrology department, said in a statement on Friday.
A total of 21 storms, including 15 typhoons and 6 tropical depressions, have affected Vietnam this year, the highest number since records began in 1961, according to the environment ministry’s statement.
Vietnam is in one of the most active tropical cyclone regions on Earth, but in a typical year, it is affected by 10 typhoons or storms.
The country has also experienced extreme rainfall and widespread flooding this year, with rivers setting new high-water marks from the northern regions through central and down to the lower Mekong Delta.
“Never before have such exceptionally large and historical floods occurred simultaneously in one year on 20 rivers,” the environment ministry said.
One area of central Vietnam recorded up to 1,739mm of rain in just 24 hours.
Elsewhere in Asia, devastating floods in recent days have killed more than 1,500 people and displaced hundreds of thousands across four countries, including Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
In Vietnam, natural disasters have left more than 400 people dead or missing this year and caused more than US$3.6 billion in damage, according to the ministry.
The Southeast Asian nation is prone to heavy rain between June and September, but scientists have identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making extreme weather more frequent and destructive.
Source: CNA
