If September felt wetter than usual, the weather service agrees. And for some people in Da Nang's hills, it was the month the ground started moving.

A hill splits in Hung Son

On September 22, authorities in Hung Son commune found a large crack running through a hill above Gari village and evacuated 40 households, 133 people, Tuoi Tre reported. Heavy rain had soaked Tra My and Hung Son for two days. In the 24 hours to 7 a.m. that day, Xuan Binh recorded 133.8 mm, Tra My 95.4 mm and Tam Ky 87.8 mm. Forecasters expected up to 250 mm in some southern areas.

The storm hit the city too: a downpour between about 7 and 8:30 a.m. snarled the morning school run.

There was one reassurance in the report. The upstream hydropower reservoirs (Song Tranh, A Vuong, Dak Mi 4 and Song Bung 4) weren't full yet, so the risk of severe downstream flooding from that spell was low.

A road gives way in Thuong Duc

Two days later, about 50 meters of district road DH12 at Km 2+100 in Thuong Duc commune collapsed and subsided after prolonged rain, Thanh Nien reported. The commune issued an urgent notice. Drivers should slow down and obey the barriers, avoid the stretch at night, in heavy rain or in poor visibility, and never stop or shelter at the slide. Commune police and militia put up barriers and gates, and the commune's economic office was told to repair the road.

The regional picture

From September 9 to 26, a broad rain system soaked central Vietnam with 300 to 700 mm in most places, VnExpress reported, citing the national hydro-meteorological forecasting center. The heaviest rain fell from Thanh Hoa to Da Nang on September 13–20 and 23–25. A Luoi in Hue set a September record of 1,252 mm, beating the 1,200 mm set in 2009, and Quy Nhon, Phan Ri and Vinh broke records too. VnExpress didn't list a Da Nang station record.

Why this matters for October

September's rain didn't stop. It set things up. By the time October's storms arrived (see our coverage of this week's flood response and Sunday's landslides), the hills were already saturated, and the city was already talking about moving more than 7,000 households out of danger zones.

The practical takeaways haven't changed. If you live in the mountains, a fresh crack in the hillside is an evacuation signal, not something to watch. If you drive the western roads, treat every barrier as real. And if you live downstream, the dam levels matter as much as the rain.

Sources

This story was compiled by the Da Nang Voice news desk from the published sources listed above. Facts, figures and quotes are attributed to those sources; Da Nang Voice did not conduct interviews for it unless the text says so. Corrections are dated and noted at the top of the story. Read our corrections policy. Spotted an error? Tell us.