HANOI (Reuters) – A landslide early on Sunday left at least 22 soldiers missing in Vietnam’s central province of Quang Tri, the government said, as the Southeast Asian country battles the worst flooding in years.
Intense rains since early October have caused floods and mudslides that have killed at least 64 people in central Vietnam, with more heavy rainfall expected over the next few days.
The landslide hit the barracks of a unit of Vietnam’s 4th Military Region, the government said in a statement on its website, days after another landslide killed 13 people, mostly soldiers, in the neighbouring province of Thua Thien Hue.
“We had another sleepless night,” a visibly emotional Phan Van Giang, Vietnam’s deputy defence minister, told reporters on Sunday.
State media reports said on Sunday water at rivers in Quang Tri province rose to the highest levels in more than 20 years.
In Thua Thien Hue province, rescuers continued to battle driving rain as they searched for at least 15 construction workers missing and feared dead after a landslide at the start of the week in a mountainous area.
Heavy rain of up to 600 millimetres will continue in parts of central Vietnam until Wednesday, Vietnam’s weather agency said on Sunday.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
