Typhoon Mangkhut hits the Philippines on September 15, causing great damages. (Photo: AP)Hanoi (VNA) – President Tran Dai Quang and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on September 18 extended their condolences to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte over the tragic loss caused by Typhoon Mangkhut in the country.
On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh sent his sympathies to Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Alan Peter S. Cayetano over the deadly tropical storm.
Mangkhut, the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines in two years and also the strongest across the world so far this year, swept through Luzon Island, north of the country on September 15. The storm sustained wind speeds of over 200km per hour and caused power blackouts in several areas.
By the end of September 17, the death toll in the Philippines amounted to 65. There were about 33 people injured and some 45 still unaccounted for.
The typhoon triggered a total of 81 landslides and 13 flooding incidents in the Cordillera Administrative Region alone. It also destroyed many houses and forced over 60,000 households in the northern region of the Philippines to be evacuated.
Additionally, the storm devastated the country’s production of vegetables, rice, and corn with the harvest season just a month away. –VNA
VNA
