Super Typhoon Yagi is wreaking havoc in East Asia and it has already killed at least 87 people in Vietnam after reaching land on September 8.
Dashcam video circulating online shows the latest devastation, the collapse of the Phong Chau bridge located in Phu To province. The bridge caved in on September 10 taking several cars down into the water with it. Rescue workers are still searching for 13 missing people.
The typhoon (westerners call these storms hurricanes) is the most powerful cyclone to hit Vietnam in three decades and 1.5 million people are still without electricity. The storm has weakened to the status of tropical depression, but such storm remnants are still able to cause massive damage through flooding from excess rainfall.
So far 240 Vietnamese people have suffered injuries from the storm whose top winds were 126 miles per hour. It is the most powerful storm to hit Asia so far this year.
When the bridge collapsed it took ten cars and two scooters with it according to deputy prime minister Hu Duch Phoc. The dashcam footage shows a truck careening over the edge and into the water even though the driver was trying desperately to stop.
Nguyen Min Hai is a lucky man. He was driving his motorcycle across the bridge when it collapsed and he said he’s fortunate to have escaped death. “I can’t swim and I thought I would have died, he said.”
Rescuers were able to pull three people to safety from the water, though 13 are still missing.
The Vietnamese military is getting ready to put a temporary pontoon bridge in place of the collapsed structure, which spanned 1,230 feet before it collapsed.
Of the 87 who have died in the country from the typhoon, 44 were killed by flash floods and landslides. Not all details or identities are yet known, but officials say the dead included a one-year-old boy, a newborn, and a woman of 68.
The storm ripped roofs from buildings, took trees up by their roots, and laid waste to houses and infrastructure around the country.
Floods were also a problem and waters rose to a yard high earlier this week causing the evacuation of 2,400 households in Yen Bai province. In 12 provinces the schools are closed, and 50,000 people living in coastal villages have been evacuated.
