HANOI, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Natural disasters, mainly floods, hail, landslide and storms, claimed 435 lives and left 850 others missing or injured in Vietnam last year, Vietnam News newspaper reported Wednesday.

    The disasters that hit 50 localities nationwide in 2007, also damaged 113,000 hectares of rice and many irrigation works, causing total property losses of some 725 million U.S. dollars, or one percent of GDP, the paper quoted the country's General Statistics Office as saying.

    Consequently, 723,900 families, or a total population of 3,034,500 in flood-hit areas faced hunger, said the newspaper.

    The Vietnamese government has recently approved the National Strategy on Natural Disaster Prevention, Response and Mitigation by 2020.

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