~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Floods kill 13 in northern Vietnam

HANOI - Flooding, landslides and lightning have killed at least 13 people since Friday night in northern Vietnam, bringing the nationwide death toll in a week of torrential rain to 40, a government report said on Sunday. Thousands have been evacuated to higher ground as water levels in the region's main rivers were expected to continue rising with more rainfall forecast for the coming week, state media quoted the report as saying.

Northern Vietnam is not the key area for rice production, but more rain was also expected in the southern Mekong Delta rice basket in coming days. However, most of the summer-autumn rice crop has already been harvested. Natural disasters, especially floods and storms, kill several hundred people in Vietnam each year, mainly during the storm season between May and October.

This year's rains and floods caused no damage to the coffee crop in the Central Highlands where coffee trees are planted on higher ground. Officials said that four people were killed in a landslide in the northern province of Yen Bai on Saturday. Four died on the outskirts of the capital, Hanoi, when they were struck by lightning and five were swept away in flash flooding. Late last week, at least 27 people were reported killed in northern and central regions of the Southeast Asian country.

Reuters - August 20, 2006.