Storm batters Vietnam after deadly strike on Philippines

A day after leaving at least 188 people dead in the Philippines, Typhoon Kalmaegi slammed into Vietnam’s central coast on Friday, ripping off roofs, flooding low-lying neighborhoods and forcing thousands into evacuation centers, Reuters reported. Vietnamese officials confirmed five deaths and warned the toll could rise as search teams reach cut-off fishing communities. The storm arrived still carrying sustained winds above 140 kph, an unusually long-lived intensity that forecasters said made it harder for coastal defenses to hold. Ports were shut, flights diverted and schools closed across Da Nang and neighboring provinces. For the Philippines, Kalmaegi was the deadliest storm since 2022, inundating rice fields at harvest time and damaging roads that connect remote islands to Manila’s aid pipeline.

Climate scientists told Reuters that Kalmaegi’s rapid re-strengthening over the South China Sea fits a pattern seen in recent years: warmer waters provide extra energy, allowing storms to rebuild after landfall and strike a second country almost as hard as the first. That makes disaster planning harder and recovery more expensive, especially for nations that rely on agriculture and tourism.

Leaders at Brazil climate summit pressed to match words with money

The storm’s devastation fed straight into talks at the U.N.-backed climate gathering in Belém, Brazil, where leaders from Southeast Asia demanded more funding for early-warning radars, flood-resilient housing and mangrove restoration. Diplomats already worried that with the United States again distracted by domestic politics, pledges from rich nations might stall. But Kalmaegi’s images—collapsed homes, evacuees in drenched gymnasiums—gave vulnerable states fresh leverage to argue that adaptation cash cannot wait. Analysts noted that every year of warmer seas increases the odds of back-to-back, multi-country disasters like this one. Without faster investment in resilient grids and storm-proof transport, even middle-income countries will keep losing ground each time they are hit.