Typhoon Bualoi made landfall on Vietnam's central coast on September 28, 2025, bringing sustained winds of up to 133 km/h and storm surges exceeding one meter. This resulted in widespread flash floods and dangerous landslides, causing a tragic loss of at least 11 lives, with 13 individuals reported missing. Authorities preemptively evacuated thousands of residents from vulnerable coastal and low-lying areas, including major urban centers like Da Nang and Hue, which relocated hundreds of thousands of people to safer grounds.
The storm's impact extended to air travel, with four coastal airports forced to suspend operations. The typhoon's core was located at 18.3°N, 107.4°E, near Vietnam's north-central coastline. Urgent warnings for severe winds, tumultuous seas, and torrential rainfall were issued across central and northern Vietnam, urging residents to remain vigilant. Bualoi was noted as the fastest-moving storm ever recorded in the East Sea, covering over 1,000 kilometers in approximately two days, directly affecting the country's northern and central mainland regions.
The rapid progression of Bualoi highlights the evolving nature of extreme weather events and the critical need for agile disaster response. The typhoon's passage underscored the vulnerability of coastal regions to increasingly severe cyclones, a trend scientists attribute to warming oceans fueled by climate change. The back-to-back occurrences of powerful storms like Bualoi and Super Typhoon Ragasa serve as a stark reminder of the intensifying challenges faced by communities in Asia.
Vietnam's proactive disaster drills and evacuations were tested by the sheer scale of this event, emphasizing the ongoing risks to both infrastructure and lives. The economic toll is substantial, with total damages from natural disasters in Vietnam from January to August 2025 already reaching approximately $371 million, a nearly threefold increase from the same period in 2024. This highlights the compounding financial impact of increasingly frequent and severe weather events.