HANOI,
On Saturday, rescuers scrambled to find more than a dozen people who remained missing after a week of torrential floods in Vietnam, where authorities reported at least 55 deaths.
Since late October, south-central Vietnam has been inundated with rain, and famous tourist locations have been flooded many times.
This week, entire city blocks in coastal Nha Trang were submerged, while tragic landslides devastated highland passes near the Da Lat tourism hotspot.
Since Sunday, at least 55 people have been murdered in six provinces, and the search for 13 more is ongoing, according to an environment ministry statement posted on Saturday.
The mountainous Dak Lak region was affected the hardest, with more than two dozen people killed, according to the report.
As floodwaters retreated on Friday, rescuers continued to retrieve individuals from treetops and home roofs, according to official media.
Multiple roadways remained inaccessible on Saturday, and 300,000 people were without power following a blackout that initially affected over a million people, according to the environment ministry.
Natural catastrophes killed 279 people or left them missing in Vietnam between January and October, causing more than $2 billion in damage, according to the national statistics office.
The Southeast Asian country is prone to torrential rains between June and September, but scientists have discovered a pattern of human-caused climate change that makes extreme weather more common and damaging.
