HANOI: A Ford Transit van was buried (pic) by a landslide while on its way from Ha Giang Province to Bao Lam District in Cao Bang Province, leaving passengers dead or injured.
As of noon on Saturday (July 13), eight have been confirmed dead, including a child. Four additional people have been hospitalised.
According to Ha Giang Province, at around 4am on July 13, the vehicle carrying 16 people was passing through National Highway No. 34 (Km 10+900, Bac Me District’s Yen Dinh Commune) when it encountered a landslide.
When the passengers got off the vehicle to help push it through the landslide, thousands of cubic metres of land from above rushed down the road, burying the vehicle and the passengers.
The province’s police and military quickly deployed hundreds of personnel to the scene to rescue the victims.
The local Department of Health also deployed mobile medical stations at the scene to treat the buried victims and transport them back to the provincial general hospital.
Excavators are deployed to clear the scene as authorities are still working to rescue the victims.
Tran Duc Quy, Vice Chairman of Ha Giang People’s Committee, paid a visit to families of the victims and the deceased to offer support.
The landslide covered around 150m of the Km10+950 segment, measuring up to around 15m tall and 20m wide. — Vietnam News/ANN