Central Vietnam Floods Cut Roads And Hit Coastal Towns

Central Vietnam floods travel plans this week for Hoi An, Quy Nhon, and the central highlands, as three days of torrential rain since November 18, 2025, have killed at least 41 people and left 9 missing while more than 52,000 homes sit under water. Government tallies say nearly 62,000 residents have been evacuated and close to one million electricity customers have lost power as rivers burst their banks from Dak Lak to Khanh Hoa. For travelers, that mix of submerged neighborhoods, cut roads, and patchy power means that overland transfers to beach resorts and coffee country are now the weakest link, even when flights still appear on schedule.

The central Vietnam floods travel problem is that this is no longer a short coastal wind event but a multi day inland disaster that is severing highways, halting trains, and temporarily closing at least one regional airport, so anyone planning to move through this corridor in the next two weeks needs a backup plan.

Authorities and local media report that central and south central provinces including Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Khanh Hoa, Lam Dong, Thua Thien Hue, and Da Nang have borne the brunt of the current flooding phase. Official updates compiled by Vietnam's Disaster and Dyke Management Authority say rains topping 1,500 millimeters, about 60 inches, in some districts since November 18 have triggered floods and landslides that killed 41 people and left 9 missing while submerging more than 52,000 homes across six provinces. As of November 20, nearly 62,000 people had been evacuated and around 500,000 to one million customers, mainly households, had lost power as lines and substations went under water.

Several towns that matter to visitors are back in emergency mode. Hoi An, the UNESCO listed riverside town that had already endured record flooding and mass tourist evacuations in late October, is once again dealing with high river levels and water in low lying streets, while images from Quy Nhon show residents and rescuers moving through chest deep water and ferrying people from rooftops. Coffee areas around Buon Ma Thuot and parts of Dak Lak province, which many travelers visit on highland loops or day trips from beach resorts, are seeing both crop damage and broken local roads, which in practice means that tours and countryside stays are likely to be cancelled even if city hotels remain technically open.

Road access is where the central belt is taking its hardest hit. Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and regional disaster offices report that sections of National Highways 1, 14, 14E, 14H, 40B, and 20, along with parts of the Truong Son Dong route, have suffered deep flooding or landslides that block traffic, while provincial authorities count more than 140 landslide hit segments across local roads. Lam Dong province has declared a natural disaster emergency after landslides ripped away long sections of the Prenn and Mimosa passes, two key gateways into Da Lat, leaving drops of up to 40 meters where pavement used to be.

For practical purposes, that means overland routes that normally link Da Lat with Nha Trang, Quy Nhon, and Ho Chi Minh City are either closed outright or restricted to emergency and engineering traffic, so multi stop itineraries that chain beaches and highlands together should be assumed broken until authorities confirm repairs. Self drive road trips in rental cars or on motorbikes, especially in mountain passes and rural backroads, are currently a poor risk choice given the unstable slopes, ongoing rain, and likelihood of further slides. Even on the coastal plain, images of submerged urban arteries and washed out bridges show that short distances on the map can now translate into hours of detours or complete dead ends.

Rail is not a reliable fallback at the moment. Vietnam Railways and transport ministry updates indicate that at least 14 to 25 passenger trains on the North South line have been cancelled since November 17, as tracks in multiple central provinces were flooded, undercut, or blocked by debris, leaving more than 2,000 passengers temporarily stranded at stations and on halted services. The operator has been providing meals and water, but some travelers have described spending one or two nights aboard stationary trains while crews assessed damage and waited for water to recede.

Airports are faring better than highways or rails but are not immune. Tuy Hoa Airport (TBB) in Phu Yen province halted all operations from 10:00 a.m. to midnight on November 20 after floodwater submerged parts of the runway and damaged electrical systems, with access roads also cut by rising water, and officials are warning that further heavy rain could trigger additional closures. At time of writing there are no reports of extended current closures at larger gateways such as Da Nang International Airport (DAD) or Cam Ranh International Airport (CXR), although recent typhoon related shutdowns and ongoing weather delays show how quickly that can change.

The key distinction from the early November typhoon phase is that the immediate wind threat has given way to a slow motion inland flood emergency that chews through infrastructure over days instead of hours. When Typhoon Kalmaegi came ashore earlier this month, the Civil Aviation Authority preemptively closed six airports including Buon Ma Thuot, Pleiku, Tuy Hoa, Chu Lai, and Phu Cat for defined windows, then moved quickly into restart mode once wind and rain bands passed. In the current phase, repeated heavy rain and waterlogged slopes mean that roads and rail lines can fail days after a storm, and reopening a washed out mountain pass is a slower and more engineering heavy process than sweeping debris from a runway.

For visitors with upcoming trips, the impact depends on both timing and routing. Travelers whose plans focus on major cities that sit outside the most affected corridor, for example Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, or Phu Quoc, may feel little direct impact beyond knock on flight delays or inventory pressure as trips shift away from central Vietnam. Those whose itineraries depend on moving along the coast from Hue through Da Nang, Hoi An, Quy Nhon, and Nha Trang, or on combining these beaches with Da Lat and the coffee highlands, face the highest risk of outright cancellations or days spent marooned in a single town while local authorities wait for water to drop.

Background

Central Vietnam sits in the path of late year storm tracks that tend to bring extreme rain from October through early December, even when a system does not make landfall as a named typhoon. The region's rivers are short, steep, and fast responding, which means that rain bands dropping more than one meter of water in a few days can push levels past historic records and turn heritage centers such as Hue and Hoi An into temporary canal networks, something that has already happened once this season before the current surge. Climate scientists and regional planners have been warning for years that central Vietnam's combination of dense settlements in floodplains, deforested hillsides, and growing tourism infrastructure makes it especially vulnerable to both flash floods and slow rise events of the sort now unfolding.

How To Rework Upcoming Trips

If you are due to arrive in central Vietnam within the next 7 to 10 days, the default assumption should be that rural and cross province movements will be much more constrained than usual. For many travelers, the least stressful option will be to push itineraries back several weeks or to substitute other Vietnamese regions where infrastructure is under less strain, since both airlines and hotels are typically more flexible when a trip is threatened by an officially recognized natural disaster. Where date changes are not possible, you can reduce risk by basing yourself in a single larger city, for example Da Nang or Nha Trang, and treating day trips to surrounding areas as optional add ons that can be cancelled without wrecking the whole plan.

There is also a strong case for avoiding self arranged long distance bus and train connections until the network stabilizes. Vietnam's north south railway is a backbone for budget travelers, but as the current wave of cancellations shows, waterlogged tracks and washouts can leave trains immobile for many hours or force a return to origin, and refunds, while available, do not compensate for the lost travel day. Booking longer domestic hops as through air itineraries on a single ticket, with two to three hours of buffer where a connection is unavoidable, will give you more protection and more options if one leg is delayed or cancelled.

Travel insurance becomes a more meaningful tool in this environment, but travelers need to read policies closely. Many basic plans treat flooding as a covered event only when a government authority declares an emergency or when your specific accommodation becomes uninhabitable, so having documentation of local orders, closure notices from hotels, and before and after photos can make the difference between a successful claim and an out of pocket loss. Where budget allows, upgrading to a policy that includes robust trip cancellation and interruption coverage for natural disasters, as well as medical evacuation, reduces downside if you end up stranded in an isolated town or if health facilities are under pressure.

Because central Vietnam's flood patterns are highly localized, the best information will come from a mix of official sources and on the ground updates rather than generic weather apps. Local people's committees, provincial disaster management offices, and Vietnam's national disaster authorities publish regular bulletins about road closures, evacuation orders, and power restoration, and many hotels and tour operators in Hoi An, Quy Nhon, Da Lat, and Nha Trang now update social feeds during events to show real time street conditions. Social media clips can be useful for gauging conditions, but you should treat them as snapshots rather than full situational awareness and cross check them with official advisories and statements from your carriers or hosts.

Looking forward, travelers who like the central coast's combination of beaches, rivers, and historic streets will need to treat flood and storm risk as an integral part of trip design, not an unlucky outlier. That means favoring flexible rates at hotels, planning one or two buffer days before nonmoveable commitments such as long haul flights, and being willing to pivot toward other Vietnamese regions if forecasts show multiple heavy rain events stacking over the central belt. Until roads, bridges, and rail embankments are repaired, and until authorities signal that landslide risk has eased, the safest stance is to assume that central Vietnam floods travel options more than usual this season and to build your plans around that constraint rather than hoping to thread a narrow weather window.

Sources

• Central Vietnam flood toll rises to 41 dead and 9 missing
• Floods leave 41 dead in Vietnam, affected localities in need of supplies
• Death toll from Vietnam floods rises to 41
• Floods hit Vietnam again, killing at least 8, hindering coffee harvest
• Flooding and landslides kill at least 40 in southern and central Vietnam
• Tuy Hoa Airport temporarily suspends operations due to heavy flooding
• Vietnam Railways suspends more trains amid severe central region flooding
• 41 dead, more than 52,000 homes submerged as historic flooding batters central Vietnam
• Typhoon Kalmaegi brings rain and destruction to Vietnam as death toll nears 200 in Philippines
• Six airports temporarily closed due to Typhoon Kalmaegi
• Vietnam's tourist sites submerged as record rainfall causes major flooding
• Vietnam floods, streets of Hoi An submerged like canals
• Typhoon Kalmaegi And Fung Wong Disrupt Travel In Philippines And Vietnam