JAKARTA / HANOI – Heavy monsoon rains that forecasters had warned about for days intensified across large parts of Southeast Asia on Monday, November 17, unleashing floods and landslides that carved into mountainsides, buried villages and severed vital transport routes in central Vietnam and on Indonesia’s densely populated island of Java.

In Vietnam, torrents of mud and boulders roared down a mountainside onto a passenger bus in Khanh Hoa Province on Sunday night, killing at least six people and injuring 19, according to state media and local authorities. Thousands more have been stranded by landslides and high water that have cut highway and rail links across the central region.

To the south and west, on Java, the rains triggered a cascade of slope failures that have killed at least 18 people and left dozens missing in the provinces of Central Java, particularly around the districts of Cilacap and Banjarnegara. Villages on steep, deforested hillsides have been buried under mud as deep as eight meters, Indonesia’s national disaster agency said.

Meteorological agencies in both countries had issued warnings earlier this month that November’s transition into the peak of the rainy season would bring a heightened risk of “extreme rainfall, flooding and landslides” across central Vietnam and much of Java.

Vietnam: A Bus Crushed on a Mountain Pass

The most dramatic single incident in Vietnam unfolded late Sunday along the Khanh Le mountain pass, a high, twisting section of National Highway 27C linking the tourist city of Da Lat with the coastal hub of Nha Trang.

Shortly after 11 p.m., after hours of steady downpour, a slope above the road gave way. Rocks and earth slammed into a double-decker bus carrying 32 passengers, sweeping it sideways and crushing its front section, according to a detailed account in Dantri/DTiNews, a Hanoi-based outlet that quoted local officials and rescuers at the scene.

Source: Dantri/DTiNews

Le Thi Kim Hoa, chairwoman of Nam Khanh Vinh Commune, told the outlet that five bodies were initially recovered and two more were believed to be trapped beneath debris; later updates from Vietnam’s disaster agency and international wire services put the confirmed toll from the bus at six. Thirteen injured passengers were taken to provincial hospitals.

The same storm system destabilized slopes across Khanh Hoa. Earlier on Sunday evening, another landslide on Khanh Son Pass buried three people; one died and another remained in critical condition, local authorities said.

The central government has ordered an investigation into the safety of the route and into whether earlier slope-protection projects were adequate, Vietnam’s Saigon Times reported Monday, noting that Khanh Le Pass—rising to about 1,700 meters and lined with sheer, fractured rock faces—has long been notorious for accidents during the rainy season.

Central Vietnam Underwater, Roads and Rail Severed

The landslides came amid widespread flooding along Vietnam’s central spine from Quang Tri and Hue down to Dak Lak and Khanh Hoa provinces.

Tuoi Tre News, a major Vietnamese daily, reported that “flooding isolates mountain villages in Hue” after heavy rain on Sunday triggered landslides along the Ho Chi Minh Highway and secondary roads, cutting off several upland communities and sending runoff pouring past pagodas “like a waterfall” as residents tried to clear debris by hand.

Further south, Xinhua’s Vietnamese service described “downpours wreaking havoc across central Vietnam,” with water up to one meter deep on key highways in Quang Tri, Hue and Dak Lak, and a collapsed bridge in Quang Ngai that left more than 280 households isolated.

The national disaster management office said that rail lines and sections of the North–South Highway had been submerged or blocked by mud in Khanh Hoa, leaving more than 800 train passengers stranded and forcing detours for long-distance traffic. Factories at the Du Long Industrial Park in the neighboring province of Ninh Thuan temporarily halted operations because of flooding, the Associated Press reported.

Preliminary tallies from central and provincial authorities on Monday cited at least seven deaths in connection with the heavy rains—six on the Khanh Le bus and one worker killed in a separate slope collapse—along with dozens of injuries and thousands of people isolated or evacuated. Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting warned that from November 17 to 20, rainfall totals could reach 300 to 600 millimeters in some areas between Ha Tinh and Khanh Hoa, with “high risk of flash floods and landslides” in Quang Ngai, Dak Lak and Lam Dong.

Java: Villages Buried in Cilacap and Banjarnegara

In Indonesia, the worst damage has been concentrated in the steep uplands of Central Java, where torrents of rain soaked already unstable hillsides over several days.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said that in Cibeunying village, in the Majenang subdistrict of Cilacap, a landslide late last week buried at least a dozen houses under three to eight meters of mud and rock. The disaster agency’s local chief, M. Abdullah, told the Reuters bureau in Jakarta that 16 bodies had been recovered there and seven people remained missing as of Monday.

Video carried by KompasTV and other Indonesian outlets showed excavators chewing into a brown, churned landscape where rooftops barely broke the surface, while rescue teams in orange uniforms picked through debris by hand. “Petugas menggunakan ekskavator melakukan pencarian korban longsor,” Tempo reported—officials are using excavators to search for victims—adding that multi-day heavy rains had saturated the slope above Cibeunying.

A second cluster of landslides in Banjarnegara district on Saturday and Sunday killed at least two people and left 27 missing, damaged about 30 homes and farms, and cut road access to several hamlets, the disaster agency said. Some 800 residents have been evacuated to temporary shelters, according to the Associated Press.

The Indonesian police news portal, citing BNPB, said that at least 45 residents remained isolated in Situkung village in Banjarnegara as of Monday, with helicopters and off-road vehicles trying to reach them as continued rain kept the ground unstable.

‘We Heard a Roar, Then Everything Went Dark’

Stories emerging from the buried villages underscore how quickly the saturated hillsides gave way.

Detik.com, a major online news outlet, recounted the testimony of Daryana, a 52-year-old survivor from Cibeunying. He told reporters he had just returned from a prayer gathering on Thursday night when he heard a strange rumble from the back of his house. Moments later, the slope collapsed, swallowing his home and killing his wife and child.

Similar scenes played out in Khanh Hoa, where images published by Dantri/DTiNews showed the bus on Khanh Le Pass crumpled against the mountainside, its metal skin peeled open by the force of the slide as rescuers worked under driving rain and headlamps.

Across both countries, responders have had to work on precarious ground. In Central Java, more than 500 people—police, soldiers and volunteers—are involved in the search, backed by more than 20 excavators and at least 18 sniffer dogs, the AP reported. In Vietnam, provincial authorities rushed heavy equipment to clear blocked highways even as meteorologists warned of more rain in the coming days.

Forecasts Fulfilled, but Risks Growing

The intensity of the rainfall did not come as a surprise to regional forecasters.

In early November, Vietnam’s hydro-meteorological service and the ASEAN disaster center both warned that a cold surge and moisture-laden monsoon flow could bring multiple days of heavy rain to the central provinces, heightening the risk of “flash floods and landslides in mountainous areas” and new flooding in lowlands still recovering from October’s storms.

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) issued a series of bulletins this month flagging much of Java—including West, Central and East Java—as under “alert” for heavy to very heavy rain through at least the third week of November, and warning that the country was entering the peak rainy season with elevated risks of floods and landslides.

Local weather stations in both countries reported rainfall totals that, while still being verified, are consistent with extreme events. In central Vietnam, meteorologists noted accumulations of 150 to 235 millimeters within 24 hours in parts of Quang Ngai, and more than 120 millimeters in some parts of Khanh Hoa. Relief agencies working off national hydro-meteorological data are preparing for additional landslides as soils remain saturated.

Scientists say such episodes fit a broader pattern of intensifying wet-season extremes across Southeast Asia, driven in part by a warming atmosphere that can hold more moisture. A joint analysis cited by Al Jazeera noted that landslides and flash floods have already killed dozens across the region this year, with the latest events in Vietnam and Indonesia adding to a grim tally.

A Region on the Front Lines

Even as rescue teams in both countries race to recover the missing and reopen vital roads, officials acknowledge that the deeper challenge lies in adapting to a climate in which “once in a decade” deluges are becoming increasingly frequent, overwhelming infrastructure and exposing long-standing vulnerabilities in rural and urban communities alike. (zai)