Residents of Danang, the country’s third largest city, are forbidden to go out in the street.
Typhoon Noru made landfall in Vietnam on Wednesday morning, causing power outages in the country’s center, where tens of thousands of residents took shelter from the powerful winds and heavy rains. “The position of the typhoon’s center at 4 a.m. on Sept. 28 is between Danang and Quang Nam,” the country’s National Hydrometeorological Forecasting Center said, adding that the wind speed was between 103 km/h and 117 km/h.
In Danang, Vietnam’s third largest city, where residents were forbidden to go out in the street, buildings were affected by the strong winds, which toppled trees and tore off roofs, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists on the spot. Nationwide, more than 300,000 people took refuge in shelters as meteorologists identified Noru as one of the biggest storms to hit the Southeast Asian country.
“We were prepared
Authorities had announced on Tuesday evening that they had evacuated nearly 260,000 people from their homes, including in the tourist city of Hoi An, where the Hoai River was set to overflow. “The typhoon was terrible. I couldn’t sleep because the wind was so strong and noisy,” Nguyen Thi Hien, a resident, told AFP. I heard the sound of trees and signs falling outside. I was scared. But we were prepared, so fortunately the damage is not that high.”
By Wednesday morning, residents were already clearing the streets of pieces of sheet metal and torn vegetation that blocked some roads and damaged cars. Tourists were also walking around and taking advantage of the few stores already open. Three hundred houses in the coastal province of Quang Tri had their roofs blown off Tuesday night as the winds began to strengthen.