The death toll from seasonal flooding in Vietnam's Mekong delta hit 52 Friday, as officials warned water levels were set to top the highs recorded in last year's floods which killed more than 400 people.
In the worst-hit provinces of An Giang, Dong Thap and Long An, water levels are already between 30 and 70 centimetres higher than at the same time last year, relief officials said.
With no let-up in sight in the Mekong's annual spate, the floodwaters are expected to top last year's peak of 5.06 metres by the end of the month, reaching their highest levels since 1961.
But provincial authorities are optmistic that the lessons learnt from last year's floods will help them to limit the death toll.
Families are being evacuated more rapidly from flooded homes and child care centres have been set up in a bid to limit the child death toll, officials said.
Infants accounted for 45 of this year's deaths and a full 291 of those killed last year as parents were forced to leave children alone in flooded homes to go off in search of food or firewood.
Upstream in neighbouring Cambodia, this year's floods have already killed 56 people and forced the evacuation of 500,000, prompting urgent appeals for international assistance -- HANOI (AFP)
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