The city has experienced heavy rains since early Tuesday morning, which have severely flooded more than 100 spots, stalling traffic and damaging buildings.
The waters ruined an entire shipment of products that had just arrived at Linn Cosmetic, a store on Nguyen Van Loc Street, Mo Lao Ward.
Its owner, Nguyen Thi Hoang Lien, said she had stocked up in preparation for the upcoming Vietnamese Women’s Day on Oct. 20. “We had to discard [most of] them because they got soaked.”
Having learned from the previous flooding a week ago she has hired workers to pump water out of the store and its warehouse but the process has been slow due to the sheer volume of floods.
The pumping costs VND3 million (US$114) for three hours but was necessary to salvage any remaining goods, she said. “Items that can still be salvaged will be sold at a discount to help us buy new products for Oct. 20.”
The store is still partially submerged and has suffered VND800 million worth of losses so far, she estimated.
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The partially submerged warehouse at Lien’s store on Nguyen Van Loc Street, Mo Lao Ward, Hanoi, on October 7, 2025. Photo by Hoang Lien |
Huyen’s business, which supplies meals to schools and offices in the Ha Dong area, had just finished preparing the food when schools notified her that students would be studying from home. The city had also advised companies to let workers work remotely.
She had to try selling the cooked food to supermarkets and stores and calling for support online from the local community. She said: “I slashed their prices by 40%. Any amount recovered helps.”
But while she managed to secure a few hundred orders that morning, she had to cancel them by noon since her delivery truck could barely move due to the flooding and gridlock. “That batch of food eventually had to be destroyed,” she said.
According to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the heavy rain was caused by Typhoon Matmo’s circulation and high-altitude wind convergence. Some 122 areas were still flooded as of Tuesday noon, with traffic completely blocked at 29 of them.
Hoang Tung, chairman of F&B Investment, which owns six PizzaHome and Com Ga 68 restaurants across the city, said his company had received dozens of large pre-orders from schools for Monday for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
But all of them were canceled as many schools either closed or switched to online classes. “What was supposed to be one of our best days ended with almost no sales,” Tung said. “Catering services that had prepared in advance for Mid-Autumn Festival parties are likely to suffer even greater losses.”
Tung’s business received lots of online orders on Tuesday, but there were no delivery drivers available.
Minh Hoa, who sells food at an apartment complex in Ha Dong Ward, also had to cancel all her orders as the rain and flooding prevented her from going out to buy ingredients. “I had to apologize to about 15 regular customers this morning,” she said, adding most were considerate given the unpredictable weather.
Most stalls at Nha Xanh Market in Dich Vong Hau Ward were closed on Tuesday, with merchants scrambling to move their goods to avoid flood damage.
Bui Van Binh, 29, who sells shoes and clothes, said the flooding began at around 6 a.m. and the water quickly rose to one meter. He managed to move most items out of the shop or onto higher shelves in time, but some were still soaked.
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Bui Van Binh moving his merchandise out of his stall at the Nha Xanh Market in Hanoi on the morning of October 7, 2025. Photo by VnExpress/Tung Dinh |
Giang Mi Phu, 28, saw her clothing stall inundated and lost goods worth around VND50 million. Anh Tung, who runs a grocery store on Nguyen Hoang Street, said he remained open despite the weather to make sure people could get essential items and dry foods. He had to set up a steel barrier over one meter high to block the water from flowing in, he added.
Other shop owners on streets such as Nguyen Trai and Duy Tan also had to adopt similar means to protect their merchandise.
The rain briefly subsided in the afternoon before resuming in the evening, forcing many eateries in Cau Giay and Thanh Xuan wards to halt operations.
Nguyen Van Thang, manager of a barbecue restaurant on To Hieu Street in Nghia Do Ward, said workers were given a day off to ensure their safety.
The flooding also caused power outages in several areas, affecting people’s daily lives. Nguyen Hong, 28, said her workplace asked employees to work from home but her rented apartment on Lac Long Quan Street in Xuan La Ward was under 40-50 cm of water and without electricity from 7 a.m.
“I waded to a café nearly one kilometer away hoping it would have power so I could work, but it was also out,” she said. “I had no choice but to go back home. I just hope my laptop and phone batteries will last through the day.”
The water receded a little by 3 p.m. but power was not restored. Hong said there had been an outage lasting more than a day after Typhoon Bualoi dumped heavy rains last week.
Nguyen, who lives in an alley on the same street, said the power cut made daily life difficult. “I cannot cook, though fortunately there is a shop selling ready-made food about 500 meters away. I bought some food to store in case power is not restored soon.”
According to utility EVN Hanoi, flooded substations and damaged power lines caused power outages for 13,943 customers as of Tuesday noon.
Most occurred in central areas such as Ba Dinh, Hoan Kiem and Ha Dong wards though some suburban wards like Gia Lam, Tu Liem, Dong Anh, Soc Son and Son Tay were also affected.
Power was restored for 5,562 consumers by late afternoon. Authorities said they are ramping up efforts to restore substations and power lines but it might take some time in heavily flooded areas like Ba Dinh and Hoan Kiem.
