Kalmaegi unleashed record rainfall and flooding in the central Philippines this week -- sweeping away cars, trucks and shipping containers before lashing Vietnam late Thursday.
"The roof of my house was just blown away," said Nguyen Van Tam, a 42-year-old fisherman in Vietnam's Gia Lai province, where the storm made landfall packing sustained winds of up to 149 kilometres (92 miles) per hour, according to the environment ministry.
"We were all safe, (but) the typhoon was really terrible, so many trees fallen," he said, adding that his boat had survived intact.
Vietnamese authorities were still assessing the damage on Friday morning, but the environment ministry reported five dead, and 57 houses collapsed in Gia Lai and neighbouring Dak Lak.
Nearly 3,000 more had their roofs blown off or were damaged, it said, while 11 boats or ships sank.
In the streets along Gia Lai's Quy Nhon beach, AFP journalists saw rescue workers and soldiers working with residents to clear uprooted trees, remove debris and collect sheet-metal roofs blown away in the night.
"This was a very big typhoon that hit us," Tran Ngo An, 64, told AFP. "This was the second time I witnessed such a typhoon. The other one was 10 years ago or so, but not that strong as compared to this."
The state power company said 1.6 million clients lost electricity as the typhoon smashed the central coast, but service to a third of them had been restored by Friday morning.
Vietnam is in one of the most active tropical cyclone regions on Earth and is typically affected by 10 typhoons or storms a year, but Kalmaegi was the 13th of 2025.
Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful due to human-driven climate change. Warmer oceans allow typhoons to strengthen rapidly, and a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, meaning heavier rainfall.
Fast-moving Kalmaegi had already swept northwest toward Laos by morning with significantly weakened winds, but heavy rain was still forecast for much of Vietnam's central coast, the national weather bureau said.
The storm was next forecast to hit Thailand, which issued a warning Friday for heavy rainfall and flooding starting in the northeast but spreading to the rest of the country.
- Relentless rains -
Kalmaegi had initially battered the islands of Cebu and Negros in the Philippines before swooping back out to sea.
Floodwaters described as unprecedented rushed through the hardest hit Cebu province's towns and cities, where the hunt for missing people continues.
Philippines authorities raised the death toll to 188, with 135 still missing.
The typhoon hit central Vietnam as it was still reeling from more than a week of flooding and record rains that killed at least 47 people and submerged centuries-old historic sites.
The heavy rains starting in late October had drenched the former imperial capital Hue and the ancient town of Hoi An, both UNESCO-listed sites, turning streets into canals and flooding tens of thousands of homes.
Up to 1.7 metres (5 feet 6 inches) fell over one 24-hour period in a downpour breaking national records.
With more than 3,200 kilometres of coastline and a network of 2,300 rivers, Vietnam faces a high risk of flooding.
Before Kalmaegi, natural disasters had already left 279 people dead or missing this year and caused more than $2 billion in damage, according to Vietnam's national statistics office.
Philippine death toll tops 140 as typhoon heads towards Vietnam
Liloan, Philippines Nov 6, 2025 -
Typhoon Kalmaegi has killed at least 142 people and left another 127 missing after unleashing devastating flooding across the central Philippines, official figures showed Thursday, as the storm headed towards Vietnam.
The typhoon is so far the globe's deadliest of 2025, according to disaster database EM-DAT. Trami, also in the Philippines, was last year's third-deadliest typhoon with 191 fatalities.
Floodwaters described as unprecedented rushed through Cebu province's towns and cities this week, sweeping away cars, riverside shanties and even massive shipping containers.
The national civil defence office on Thursday confirmed 114 deaths, though that tally did not include an additional 28 recorded by Cebu provincial authorities. More than 500,000 Filipinos remain displaced.
In Liloan, a town near Cebu City where 35 bodies have been recovered, AFP reporters saw cars piled atop each other by floodwaters and roofs torn off buildings as residents attempted to dig out of the mud.
Christine Aton's sister Michelle, who has a disability, was among Liloan's victims, trapped in her bedroom as the floodwaters rose inside their house.
"We tried to pry open (her bedroom door) with a kitchen knife and a crowbar but it wouldn't budge.... Then the refrigerator started to float," Aton, 29, said.
"I opened a window and my father and I swam out. We were crying because we wanted to save my older sister.
"But my father told me we couldn't do anything for her, that all three of us might end up dead."
Chyros Roa, a 42-year-old father of two, said his family was saved by his dog's barking when water rushed into their home in the early hours, giving them just enough time to reach their roof.
"The current was really strong. We tried to call for rescue, but no one came. We were told the rescuers were swept away by the current," he said.
On Thursday, President Ferdinand Marcos declared a "state of national calamity", a move allowing the government to release funding for aid and impose price ceilings on basic necessities.
"Unfortunately, there's another (typhoon) coming with the potential to become an even stronger one," he said at an afternoon press briefing.
Still more than 1,500 kilometres to the country's east, tropical storm Fung-wong is slowly building strength as it heads towards the Philippines' main island of Luzon.
It could reach super typhoon status before it makes landfall on Monday.
- 'Once every 20 years' -
State weather service meteorologist Benison Estareja told AFP the rains along Kalmaegi's path were 1.5 times the amount that would typically fall in Cebu for a full November, saying it was something that happened "once every 20 years".
The "highly urbanised" nature of the most-affected communities around Cebu City had made it even deadlier, he added.
"Around four or five in the morning, the water was so strong that you couldn't even step outside," said Reynaldo Vergara, 53, adding that everything in his small shop in Mandaue had been lost when a nearby river overflowed.
"Nothing like this has ever happened. The water was raging."
In a radio interview, provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro called the situation "unprecedented".
Scientists warn that storms are becoming more powerful due to human-driven climate change. Warmer oceans allow typhoons to strengthen rapidly, and a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, meaning heavier rainfall.
- 'Urgent and dangerous' -
Kalmaegi windspeeds were increasing Thursday as it headed towards neighbouring Vietnam, where fear was mounting the typhoon could compound the damage of a week of flooding that has already claimed 47 lives.
The typhoon is forecast to make landfall in central Vietnam late Thursday, bringing waves as high as eight metres (26 feet) and powerful storm surges, according to the national weather bureau.
Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha urged local authorities to treat Kalmaegi as "urgent and dangerous", calling it "a very abnormal" storm in a statement Wednesday.
Authorities have ordered thousands to evacuate from coastal communities, and in Quy Nhon city -- just south of where Kalmaegi is forecast to make landfall -- an AFP reporter saw officials knocking on doors Thursday and warning people to flee.
Ten typhoons or tropical storms usually affect Vietnam, directly or offshore, in a given year, but Typhoon Kalmaegi is set to be the 13th of 2025.
The Philippines has already reached its average of 20 such storms with Kalmaegi, state weather specialist Charmagne Varilla told AFP, adding at least "three to five more" storms could be expected by December's end.
Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
