HANOI, July 11 (Xinhua) -- Torrential rain and floods over the past few days have killed nine local residents and left two other missing in Vietnam's northern mountainous provinces.
Among the nine deaths, four have been reported in Thai Nguyen province, two in Ha Giang province, two in Dien Bien and one in Hoa Binh, Vietnam's Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control said on Tuesday, adding that two people from Ha Giang and Cao Bang provinces have been listed as missing.
The downpour and floods have also destroyed or damaged over 80 houses and seven bridges and drains, caused several landslides, and inundated hundreds of hectares of paddy rice and other crops, causing losses of some 9 billion Vietnamese dong (400,000 U.S. dollars).
Natural disasters in Vietnam in the first half of the year killed or left 27 people missing, injured 30 others, and caused property losses of over 433 billion Vietnamese dong (19.2 million U.S. dollars), said the country's General Statistics Office.
