November 1964 Vietnam floods
U.S. and South Vietnamese military officials stated that the disaster caused a larger setback to their war effort than the Viet Cong had done.
A widespread relief effort involving several countries began in the wake of the floods, resulting in the challenging distribution of food, shelter, and medical supplies amid conflict within a contested region.
[4] Vietnam had been struck by three other typhoons—Tilda, Winnie, and Violet—earlier in the year,[5]: 51 which along with Iris, Joan, and Kate in November constituted a total of six typhoons striking the country between the 11th and 22nd parallel north in 1964, along with two other tropical storms.
[6]: 74 The first storm, Iris, may have developed from a tropical disturbance east of Samar as early as October 31 according to tracking data from the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA).
[7] Weather observations detected the system, named Iris, as it tracked westward South China Sea in early November.
The incipient system moved west into the South China Sea, and on November 6 ships reported the presence of a tropical storm with winds of 75 km/h (45 mph).
The system, named Joan, became a typhoon on November 8 and attained peak one-minute sustained winds of 130 km/h (70 mph) before making landfall on Vietnam north of Nha Trang later that day.
It took an initially erratic path, reversing and shifting its heading several times before embarking on a more steady west-northwestward course on November 15.
Kate became a typhoon later that day and struck the Vietnamese coast near Nha Trang on November 16; one-minute sustained winds just prior to landfall were estimated by the JTWC at around 120 km/h (75 mph).
The deluge was the most severe in at least six decades, obliterating hamlets in mountain valleys and coastal plains and wiping out the central Vietnamese rice crop.
[29] The U.S. and South Vietnamese militaries reported that the flooding inflicting greater losses to their war effort than the Viet Cong had done cumulatively since 1954.
By comparison, American intelligence believed that North Vietnamese guerrilla forces sustained fewer losses; the South Vietnamese military believed that underground storehouses and ammunition supplies used by the guerrilla forces were damaged by the storm, potentially delaying a winter offensive by at least two months.
[23] The barracks of the U.S. 117th Aviation Company were damaged by the storm's winds, forcing its occupants to seek shelter in concrete outhouses.
[32][33] The adverse conditions caused by Iris's passage disrupted ongoing flood relief operations started in response to storms earlier in the year, grounding U.S. Marine Corps flights outside of emergency medical evacuations.
[37] At least 2,600 fatalities occurred in Quảng Tín Province according to Bert Fraleigh, the associate deputy director of the U.S. Operations Mission to Vietnam.
[43] The same helicopter company also delivered 6,350 kg (14,000 lb) of rice to isolated communities as part of a joint Vietnamese and American relief effort in Phú Bổn Province.
[21]: 4 [44] A statement from the government of South Vietnam appealed for aid from "the people of the free world" with "national solidarity no longer sufficient to respond to the enormous needs of a population curelly stricken" by the floods.
[46][47] Martial law was declared in six South Vietnamese provinces affected by the floods to hinder the Viet Cong advance into coastal regions.
[51] Canada and the United Kingdom contributed blankets and cloths to the relief effort while the government of New Zealand granted £10,000 to South Vietnam.
