Heavy rain has pummelled Vietnam's coastal provinces, home to Hoi An's ancient town that is a UNESCO world heritage site, since the weekend, with a record of up to 1.7 metres (5 feet 7 inches) falling over 24 hours.
People steered wooden boats and waded through waist-deep water down Hoi An's flooded streets on Thursday, with the ground floors of houses and shops submerged, an AFP journalist said.
Resident Tran Thi Ky said her family had tried to raise their furniture off the ground using bricks over the past few days.
"Finally, we gave up," the 57-year-old told AFP.
Ky said the family's refrigerator, kitchenware and wooden furniture on the ground floor were almost completely underwater.
"I have never experienced this in my whole life living here," she said from the balcony of her two-storey house.
At least 10 people have been killed this week and eight others are missing, the environment ministry said.
More than 128,000 houses in five central provinces have been inundated, with water three metres (10 feet) deep in some areas.
- 'Alarming' flooding -
Several kilometres of roads have been damaged or blocked by flooding and landslides, with more than 5,000 hectares of crops destroyed and over 16,000 cattle dead, the environment ministry said.
State media reported that a section of a mountain pass linking Danang and Quang Ngai provinces was reopened after it was blocked by a landslide on Sunday.
Rescuers using drones delivered water and instant noodles to around 50 people in dozens of trucks who had been isolated on the roadway with no food and water, the report said.
Flood levels at a measuring station on the Thu Bon river, which flows through Danang and empties into the sea at Hoi An, "surpassed the historic level in 1964 by four centimetres, reaching 5.62 metres" late on Wednesday, the national weather bureau said.
"Normally the flooding lasts only three days and then we can start cleaning up," said Danang resident Le Thi Thi, 58.
"I don't think I ever experienced this prolonged and terribly high flooding," she told AFP.
Forecasters said water levels had started to slowly recede in Danang and Hue city but would remain at "alarming" levels on Thursday.
Scientists say human-driven climate change is making extreme weather events such as storms and floods more deadly and destructive.
Natural disasters, mostly storms, floods and landslides, left 187 people dead or missing in Vietnam in the first nine months of this year.
Total economic losses were estimated at more than $610 million, according to government figures.
Climate change, poor planning drive Vietnam flooding
Hanoi Oct 30, 2025 -
Dozens of people dead, thousands evacuated and millions of dollars in damage. Vietnam is once again battling widespread flooding driven by climate change and poor infrastructure decisions, experts say.
The Southeast Asian nation's location and topography make it naturally vulnerable to frequent typhoons and some flooding, but the situation is being made worse by the heavier rains that climate change brings and rampant urbanisation.
- Stronger, wetter storms -
Vietnam is in one of the most active tropical cyclone regions on Earth and prone to heavy rains between June and September.
Ten typhoons or tropical storms usually affect Vietnam, directly or offshore, in a given year, but it has experienced 12 already in 2025.
"Climate change is already shaping Vietnam's exposure in several important ways," said Nguyen Phuong Loan, a climate scientist at the University of New South Wales.
Studies suggest climate change will produce fewer but "possibly more intense tropical cyclones (typhoons)" along with heavier bursts of rain because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture.
"That means a higher chance of flash floods, especially in densely populated urban areas," said Loan.
Rising sea levels are also putting pressure on coastal communities.
- Topography, infrastructure -
With 3,200 kilometres (around 2,000 miles) of coastline and a network of 2,300 rivers, Vietnam faces a high risk of flooding.
Much of the country has little natural ability to drain quickly after heavy flooding because of its topography, hydrological experts said.
In some cases construction and environmental degradation has made matters worse, said meteorological expert Nguyen Lan Oanh.
Upstream forest destruction for hydropower projects, cementing of drainage canals and rampant urbanisation have "badly contributed to the source of flooding and increased landslides", Oanh told AFP.
"Humans need to change their perception in the way they treat nature for a safer world."
- Devastating impacts -
This week alone, floods triggered by record rainfall in central Vietnam have killed at least 10 people and inundated more than 100,000 homes.
In the coastal city of Hue, up to 1.7 metres of rain fell in just 24 hours.
The flooding follows several rounds of inundations in the capital Hanoi and elsewhere, linked to storm systems or heavy rain fronts.
Natural disasters -- mostly storms, floods and landslides -- left 187 people dead or missing in Vietnam in the first nine months of this year.
Hundreds more were killed or left missing last year, many of them in Typhoon Yagi, the strongest storm to hit Vietnam in decades.
Yagi caused an estimated $1.6 billion in economic losses.
- Responses -
Vietnam "is making great efforts at early warning", said Ralf Toumi, director of the Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London.
In recent flood incidents, the government has issued evacuation orders and assisted residents moving to higher ground.
But "the infrastructure also needs to be continuously improved as the country is getting richer", Toumi added.
Dykes, sea barriers and drainage systems in major deltas on the Red River and the Mekong have been reinforced, upgraded or newly built.
And after deadly landslides and flash floods triggered by Yagi, part of an entire village in northern Lao Cai province was relocated to safer, higher ground.
But often "the focus is on disaster infrastructure whereas it should also be on not creating disaster risk", said Brad Jessup, an environmental expert at the University of Melbourne.
"Without attending to risk reduction, the needs for protection infrastructure keeps on increasing. It is a spiral."
Climate adaptation is expensive, and wealthy countries have consistently failed to keep promises on climate funding for developing nations like Vietnam.
Rich countries pledged in 2021 to double their adaptation financing by 2025, but instead, the figure has fallen, the United Nations said this week.
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