HANOI, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Flooding sparked by torrential rain in Vietnam's central region has killed 48 local people, left four missing, and injured 209, since Nov. 10, local newspaper Vietnam Agriculture reported Monday.

    The floods also inundated hundreds of thousands of houses, damaged thousands of hectares of paddy rice, and isolated some areas in the region, causing total property losses of trillions of Vietnamese dong (VND) (hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars).

    The Vietnamese government has decided to fund the central localities 205 billion VND (over 12.8 million dollars), 8,200 tons of rice and 250 tons of instant noodle.

    Last weekend, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai came to some central localities to direct the work of overcoming the floods' aftermath. He has asked local relevant agencies to provide sufficient supply of food and clean water for flood-victims, ensuring that no people would face starvation, and keep environmental hygiene to prevent diseases.

    The region may face a new wave of flooding in the next few days, after a spell of torrential rain, according to the National Hydro-Meteorology Forecast Center. Water in some rivers in the region is rising due to heavy rain.

    Natural disasters including typhoons and hails in Vietnam killed 339 people, left 274 persons missing, and injured 2,065 others in 2006. The estimated losses totaled 18.6 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 1.2 billion dollars) in the year.