At least twelve people have been killed and dozens remain unaccounted for after torrential rains unleashed flash floods and landslides across northern Vietnam and southern China, according to local authorities. In Vietnam, a flash flood swept through Muong Than village in the mountainous province of Lai Chau in the early hours of Friday, leaving four dead, four missing and seven injured. Across the border in China’s Chongqing municipality, a rain-triggered landslide buried more than ten residential buildings in Pengshui county on Friday morning, killing eight and leaving 34 missing, Chinese state media reported.

Vietnamese disaster management officials said the flooding in Lai Chau and neighbouring Son La province was caused by days of sustained heavy rainfall, with one monitoring station recording 206 millimetres of rain in the twenty-four hours to Friday morning, most of it falling overnight. The deluge sent torrents of water surging down mountainsides, collapsing two-storey homes, severing a major highway and cutting off communities. More than 200 police officers were deployed to the affected areas, while state-run media reported that a total of 500 rescue personnel were involved in searching for the missing and evacuating residents from areas at risk of further landslides. Among those caught in the flooding was a family of four whose home was swept away; the father was later found more than a kilometre downstream with a broken leg, but his wife and two children remain missing. In Son La province, landslides destroyed three homes and damaged fourteen others, though an elderly woman and her four grandchildren were pulled alive from a buried house.

In China, the landslide struck Pengshui county at around 9 a.m. local time, approximately one hour after community workers noticed rocks falling from a hillside and began evacuating residents. More than sixty people were moved to safety before the slope gave way, but several remained trapped beneath the debris when the landslide destroyed multiple buildings. Over 1,100 people have since been relocated from the surrounding area, with rescue efforts complicated by continuing rain and unstable ground, Chinese authorities said.

Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting warned that northern provinces could receive up to 250 millimetres of additional rainfall through Sunday, heightening the risk of further flash floods and landslides on already saturated terrain. The region’s monsoon season typically peaks between July and September, and government figures show that natural disasters, predominantly floods, claimed 489 lives in Vietnam last year. Scientists have identified a pattern of human-driven climate change making such extreme weather events more frequent and destructive. The death toll remains provisional as search operations continue on both sides of the border.