This color-coded image shows rainfall amounts from October 11 to October 17, 2010. The heaviest rainfall—more than 600 millimeters or nearly 24 inches—appears in dark blue. The lightest amounts—less than 75 millimeters or 3 inches—appear in light green. The heaviest rainfall is concentrated over north-central Vietnam and Hainan.

Floods had already struck Hainan Province earlier in the month, CNN reported. Evacuees had taken refuge in government and school buildings. The government of Vietnam, meanwhile, reported that it had mobilized air-, land-, and water-based vehicles for search-and-rescue operations, and had distributed food, life jackets, and medicines.

This image is based on data from the Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis produced at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, which estimates rainfall by combining measurements from many satellites and calibrating them using rainfall measurements from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission(TRMM) satellite.

1. References

2. CNN. (2010, October 17). Report: 1000,000 evacuated because of South China flooding. Accessed October 18, 2010.
3. Government of Vietnam. (2010, October 18). Additional flooding in north-central Vietnam kills 20 people. ReliefWeb. Accessed October 18, 2010.

NASA image by Jesse Allen, using near-real-time data provided courtesy of TRMM Science Data and Information System at Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.

Instrument: 

TRMM - MPA