A woman walks among the ruins of her house which was damaged by Typhoon Xangsane in Vietnam's central resort city of Danang October 2, 2006.(Xinhua/Reuters, File photo) Photo Gallery >>>

HANOI, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Typhoon Xangsane, which began to hit Vietnam's central region on Sunday, has killed 42 local people, left 7 missing and injured 502 as of Wednesday morning, a local official told Xinhua.

    Central Da Nang city, the first locality hit by the typhoon, has suffered the biggest human losses with 22 deaths, followed by the central provinces of Quang Nam, Quang Tri, Quang Binh and Ha Tinh with 14, 3, 2 and 1 respectively, said Nguyen Sy Nuoi, vice head of the Flood and Storm Prevention Department in charge of the central region under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

    The typhoon, the 6th one striking Vietnam this year, also damaged some 230,000 houses, uprooted thousands of trees and electric poles, and inundated many hectares of subsidiaries crops and aquaculture ponds in the four central coastal localities of Thua Thien Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, causing total property losses of nearly 10 trillion Vietnamese dong (over 628.9 million U.S. dollars).

    Before reaching Vietnam, Xangsane, which means "elephant" in Lao language, has claimed about 200 lives in the Philippines. Enditem