Tropical storm Mirinae leaves four dead in Vietnam

Tropical storm Mirinae killed four people and left two missing after slamming into coastal Vietnam, the national flood and storm control committee said Tuesday.

Mirinae, which battered the storm-weary Philippines as a typhoon at the weekend, was downgraded to a tropical depression before it hit the communist country Monday.

The storm, which left 19 people dead in the Philippines, killed three in Vietnam's southern Phu Yen province and one in neighbouring Binh Dinh province, the committee said in an online report.

Up to 338 millimetres (13 inches) of rain fell in Vietnam's central regions. The storm damaged or destroyed an estimated 2,600 houses and flooded some 1,800 hectares (4,400 acres) of farmland, the report added.

Vietnam's coastal provinces had evacuated more than 50,000 people before the storm hit Monday night, the report added, but some residents were still trapped by flooding Tuesday.

Vietnam is frequently hit by tropical storms and flooding.