According to provincial authorities, at around 4am, the vehicle carrying 16 people was passing through National Highway No. 34 (Km 10 900, at 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.
By 9:15 a.m., rescue teams had pulled 13 people out of the mud, including nine dead and four others critically injured. Among the dead was a boy, local media reported.
Excavators are deployed to clear the scene as authorities are still working to rescue the victims.
Tran Duc Quy, vice chairman of the provincial People's Committee, visited the injured and gave each of them 3 million VND (118 USD). Meanwhile, the families of the deceased will receive 5 million VND (197 USD) each.
