By Christina Ameln, Advisor | Sustainability, Social Impact & Engagement –
This past week, Vietnam rolled out one of its biggest evacuation efforts yet. Nearly 600,000 people were moved to safety as Typhoon Kajiki, the strongest storm of 2025, barreled in with winds topping 166 km/h. Schools shut, airports closed, and coastal towns braced for impact.
Storms aren’t new here. What’s different now is how quickly they’re intensifying. Kajiki went from a tropical depression to a monster storm in under two days. Scientists point to warmer oceans as the fuel. As Benjamin Horton of City University Hong Kong put it: “We are no longer predicting the future—we are living it.”
The human side was just as stark. Families spent nights in evacuation centers. Farmers worried over their rice fields and orchards—more than 300,000 hectares of crops were put at risk. In Hà Tĩnh province alone, tens of thousands of homes were damaged or flooded, with power cut for over a million households.
Yet, Vietnam’s response machinery was impressive. Over 16,000 soldiers and 100,000 paramilitary personnel were mobilized to help communities evacuate and stay safe. This kind of preparedness has become second nature—but it can’t stop the storms from getting stronger.
Kajiki reminds us that resilience isn’t just about cleaning up after a storm, but about building stronger systems—social, environmental, and economic—that can handle what’s coming next.
Vietnam knows storms. And with each one, it could be teaching the world a thing or two about how to prepare, adapt, and keep moving forward.
This blog was created with the support of AI technology. All views and opinions expressed on this site are those of the individual authors and comments on this site are the sole responsibility of the individual contributor.
