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HANOI: At least 98 people have been killed by flooding in central Vietnam sparked by Tropical Storm Mirinae, which slammed into the country after pummelling the Philippines, an official report said Thursday.
A further 20 people are missing after the storm struck on Monday, the latest report from the communist country's national flood and storm control committee said.
It said 69 of the fatalities were from Phu Yen province, with the rest coming from Binh Dinh, Khanh Hoa and Gia Lai provinces.
Television pictures from Phu Yen and Gia Lai showed rescuers in boats helping desperate residents escape some of the worst flooding there in decades.
Water in places reached the rooftops of buildings, where some residents had sought refuge.
"It is the most devastating flooding in more than 30 years in Phu Yen," the national disaster committee said in an earlier statement, after part of the province's system of dykes was overwhelmed.
More than 50,000 people fled the coastal provinces before the storm, which battered the Philippines as a typhoon, was downgraded to a tropical depression and made landfall late on Monday.
Mirinae destroyed 900 homes and damaged more than 14,000 others, while 18,000 hectares of rice land was flooded, according to a UN report that cited Vietnamese authorities.
Mirinae also killed two people in Vietnam's neighbour Cambodia and left 27 people dead in the Philippines, where almost 16,000 people are still living in evacuation centres.
- AFP/ir
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