This is the dramatic moment a man was pulled to safety whilebeing washed away by raging flash floods from TyphoonMolave in Vietnam.
The resident was caught up in the muddy torrents of fallen tree branches and other debris as they gushed like a river through a street in Quang Nam province.
Astonishingly, a family who was sheltering in their driveway noticed him through the driving rain and watched as he approached, flailing and spinning around in the deluge.
Footage shows how a man in a yellow shirt dashed into the knee-deep torrent and grabbed the stricken man’s hand. Several relatives then helped to pull him to safety.
Neighbour Thuy Nguyen said: ”This was the worst storm that has ever hit the area. It was a miracle the man was saved. He would have been carried into a river and drowned if my neighbour hasn’t seen him.”
The life-saving intervention came as the death toll from the deadly typhoon rose to 45 people with dozens more missing feared dead across Vietnam and the Philippines.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated across the two countries with the extreme weather leaving a trail of damaged homes, fallen trees, landslides and severe flooding.
The Typhoon made landfall in the Philippines earlier this week before smashing into central Vietnam and moving into Laos and Thailand.
It had winds of up to 145 kilometres per hour (85 miles per hour) but has now weakened into a tropical depression.
The Vietnam Red Cross Society said that more than 700 communities were without power, while infrastructure, crops and safe drinking water supplies had been damaged or destroyed,
President Nguyen Thi Xuan Thu said: ”We are heartbroken by more tragic loss of life as this typhoon has brought further misery and hardships to hundreds of thousands of people in central Vietnam.”
The annual rainy season lasts from June to November in Southeast Asia and brings heavy downpours and flooding. Cambodia has also been severely hit this year along with Indonesia and Malaysia.
