'I was falling to the river': Driver speaks of moment bridge collapses as typhoon hits Vietnam
Phong Chau Bridge near Hanoi collapsed due to high floodwaters as typhoon Yagi hit the country.
A motorcyclist has spoken of the moment a bridge in Vietnam collapsed as he drove over it after the region was hit by the most powerful typhoon in decades.
Reports said 10 cars and lorries along with two motorbikes fell into the river after the steel bridge over the overflowing Red River in Hanoi collapsed on Monday morning.
Three people were pulled out of the river and taken to hospital, but 13 others were missing.
Phan Truong Son was driving across the bridge in Hanoi when it collapsed and he was thrown into the river. He told reporters he did not believe he would survive .
"Both I and the vehicle fell into the river. I thought I was at the bottom or near the bottom (of the river).
"I gathered my best to float to the surface. I was out of breath. When I was on the surface, I still thought I would not be able to survive."
He continued: "I heard loud noises behind me and I thought to myself that the truck was so heavy that it made the loud noise. I thought it was the bridge made the noise. Before I could understand what had happened, I was falling to the river."
Son, 50, told local newspaper VNExpress he managed to swim and hold on to a drifting banana tree to stay afloat before he was rescued.
At least 59 people have died across Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi tore through the region, causing landslides, flooding, and widespread power outages. A further 176 people have been injured.
The typhoon made landfall on Saturday, bringing strong winds and heavy rain.
It has since been downgraded to a tropical depression, but officials warned of more floods and landslides, as rain continued to fall.
On Monday morning, a passenger bus carrying 20 people was swept into a flooded stream by a landslide in Cao Bang province. Rescue efforts were hampered by continuing landslides.
Yagi made landfall with winds up to 92mph, lifting roofs from buildings and uprooting trees. More than three million people were left without electricity in northern Vietnam, and nearly 116,192 hectares of agricultural land were damaged.
Before hitting Vietnam, Yagi killed at least 20 people in the Philippines last week, and three in China.
Chinese authorities said infrastructure losses across the Hainan Island province amounted to $102 million (£77m).
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