SEOUL - A mentally handicapped man from a remote South Korean farming village flew thousands of miles to Vietnam to seek his runaway bride, only to end up living on the streets of Hanoi, police said Thursday.

The 44-year-old, identified only as Kim, is both mentally and physically handicapped. He had been unable to find a bride before he married a 20-year-old Vietnamese last December through an agency.

She ran off a few days later. But police in Kim's home village of Seosang in the southeastern province of South Gyeongsang told AFP she was still believed to be in Korea.

He was found by local police late Saturday who alerted a South Korean police liaison representative in Hanoi.

Superintendent Lee Sang-Cheol said Kim looked exhausted and dirty when he visited him in a Hanoi police station.

"It was not easy to communicate with him because of his disability," he was quoted as telling Yonhap news agency. A Korean who owns a hotel in Hanoi heard about Kim's plight and offered him a room. Kim was put on a plane back home and arrived here early Monday.

Korean bachelors, especially from the countryside, turn to China, Mongolia and Southeast Asian countries when they cannot find a local bride. The number of international marriages is soaring, making up 11 percent of the total last year. Among farmers and fishermen, the rate reached 40 percent.

But more and more such unions end in divorce and there have been cases of suicide and spousal abuse.

China is the favourite choice, with the number of South Koreans marrying Chinese women or ethnic Koreans from China standing at 14,526 last year. Vietnam was second with 6,611.

Eight out of every 100 immigrant wives becomes an illegal resident after breaking up with her Korean husband, a lawmaker said, citing justice ministry statistics.

Under a new law, staff of matchmaking agencies can face a maximum prison term of two years or heavy fines for giving potential foreign brides false information about spouses or about married life in South Korea.