NASA MODIS Image of the Day: October 19, 2007 – Typhoon Lekima floods Vietnam
Typhoon Lekima unleashed heavy rains on central and northern Vietnam when it came ashore on October 3, 2007.
The resulting floods and landslides killed up 77 people and caused more than $130 million in damage, reported Reuters on October 8.
These two images show coastal northern Vietnam near the Ma and Ca Rivers, where flooding was most severe. The MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the main image on October 7, five days after the storm initially came ashore. If you move your mouse over the image, you’ll see another image, taken on September 30, a few days before Lekima struck. Though scattered clouds, light blue and white in this type of image, obscure the view of the ground, extensive flooding is still visible around the two rivers in the October 7 image. Both images were made with infrared and visible light in a combination that highlights the presence of water on the ground. Water is typically black in these images, but dirt in the water scatters light, turning the water blue. In the lower half of the main image, the Ca River is swollen and pale blue. The overflowing river is sweeping mud from the surrounding landscape. Some of the mud may also be from run-off and landslides. A burst of bright blue blooms from the river’s mouth where the mud-laden water enters the southern Gulf of Tonkin. A second, much larger plume is coming from the area around the mouth of the Ma River towards to the top of the image. In this case, the floods are not confined to the river itself, but appear to be spread across the land around the river. Spots of pale blue beyond the river channel may be either sediment-filled water or water-soaked earth.
