VIETNAM: Flash floods and landslides have killed 50 people in Vietnam and Thailand, swept away thousands of homes and inundated farmland, according to official reports.
In Vietnam, the death toll from typhoon Hagupit, which struck the Philippines and China earlier in the week, has jumped to 32 with another five people missing.
Thousands of homes were either washed away or destroyed by heavy rains and landslides in northern Vietnam, the government's storm and flood prevention committee said.
Hagupit, which means "lashing" in Filipino, killed at least eight people in the Philippines and three in China where it triggered a "once-in-a-century storm tide".
Vietnamese soldiers were dispatched to evacuate thousands of people from areas vulnerable to more flash floods and landslides in the mountainous provinces of Son La, Lang Son and Bac Giang.
Heavy rains yesterday could trigger more landslides in the mountainous north and flooding along the Thai Binh river, the National Meteorology Centre said.
The Red River near the capital Hanoi was expected to reach dangerously high levels, rising to 8.6m (28ft), the centre added.
Vietnam's main agriculture belt including the coffee-growing Central Highlands region and the Mekong Delta rice basket was not in the storm's path.
In Thailand, the death toll from floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains has risen to 18, while nearly 190,000 people have been treated for water-related illnesses and injuries, the health ministry said. It reported there were no major outbreaks of disease since the heavy rains began more than two weeks ago, affecting 800,000 people in the country of 63 million.
Some 500,000 acres of farmland, most of it rice paddy, has been inundated, affecting roughly 2 per cent of the total paddy for the 2008-2009 growing season, according to agriculture ministry data. - (Reuters)