HANOI, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Heavy rain and flooding triggered by Typhoon Son Tinh killed three local people and left 11 others missing in Vietnam's northern Yen Bai province, the provincial authorities said on Friday.
The rain and flooding also injured seven people, destroyed 79 houses and damaged 563 others, triggered landslides and damaged roads and dykes in the province, causing property losses of over 10 billion Vietnamese dong (440,000 U.S. dollars).
Also on Friday, a flash flood in central Thanh Hoa province killed two local people and left two others missing. The four belonged to the same family in Lang Chanh district.
Over the past two days, Typhoon Son Tinh, which rapidly weakened into a tropical depression, has brought torrential rain and high levels of waters in rivers and reservoir lakes to Vietnam's central and northern regions.
According to Vietnam's National Center for Hydro-meteorological Forecasting, heavy rain may last for days in the regions, and more flash floods and landslides are likely to hit the two central provinces of Thanh Hoa and Nghe An.
In the first half of this year, natural disasters, mainly floods and landslides, killed or left missing 33 people and injured 47 others, destroyed or damaged 15,000 houses, and damaged nearly 11,000 hectares of rice and other crops in Vietnam, causing property losses of over 808 billion Vietnamese dong (35.6 million U.S. dollars), according to the General Statistics Office. Enditem
