HANOI, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Landslides and floods caused by torrential rain over the past five days in Vietnam's northern and central regions have claimed 46 human lives, left 33 people missing and injured 30 others, the country's Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control said on Friday.
The departed included 19 people in northern Hoa Binh province and eight in central Thanh Hoa province. By Friday morning, nine bodies had been recovered after a landslide buried 18 local people in Hoa Binh's Tan Lac district on Thursday morning.
The 33 missing people from Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa, central Nghe An province and the three northern provinces of Son La, Yen Bai and Ha Nam.
The landslides and floods destroyed or damaged over 1,500 houses, inundated over 33,300 houses, damaged nearly 83,900 hectares of crops and aquaculture ponds, destroyed 26 bridges and killed or swept away roughly 44,900 cattle and poultry.
In the first nine months of this year, natural disasters in Vietnam killed or left missing 169 local people, injured 232 others, damaged 236,800 houses and inundated 45,400 hectares of crops, causing property losses of over 21.5 trillion Vietnamese dong (952 million U.S. dollars), according to the country's General Statistics Office.
