Toll from Vietnam floods rises to 34: official

HANOI - Devastating floods have killed at least 34 people and left 11 others missing in central Vietnam, local authorities said Sunday, describing the deluge as the worst for over a decade.

Television footage on Sunday showed inundated houses and streets in the town of Hoi An and the former imperial City of Hue, both classed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, where hundreds of tourists have been evacuated over recent days.

At least 34 people have been killed over several days of flooding which were the most destructive since 1999, a regional official told AFP.

"Eleven other people are missing. More than 100,000 houses have been flooded and transport by road, air and rail has been severely affected across the region," said Nguyen Quang Trung, an official in the coastal city of Danang, adding several central provinces had been hit.

"Rain continued to fall on Sunday morning in the coastal provinces of Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh - where at least 20 people (of the 34) were killed," Trung said, adding damage is initially estimated at around $65 million.

Local authorities on Saturday said around 20,000 people were evacuated after at least six deaths during the floods, caused by heavy rain from a new tropical depression in the South China Sea.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated last weekend before the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan which wreaked devastation on the Philippines, before tearing across the South China Sea.

But the communist nation was spared the worst of the typhoon's power as it weakened before striking Vietnam's coast.