© Hoàng Hà / vnexpress.netHanoi under water.
Floods have killed at least 19 people in central Vietnam, emergency services said Friday, as heavy rains also lashed the capital Hanoi and left many streets under one metre (three feet) of water.
Central Ha Tinh province -- where muddy waters inundated buildings and hundreds of hectares of rice and other crops -- reported seven deaths, said the National Flood and Storm Prevention Committee.
"A 48-year-old man was swept away after feeding his buffalo and a 19-year-old man was killed on the way to husk rice," said the committee's online report, adding that three of the victims were children.
Nghe An province reported eight deaths, four of them children aged between eight and 12 years old. The children were swept away in strong currents on their way home from school, the provincial disaster office said in a report.