Flash floods and landslides brought by tropical storm Kammuri since Saturday have battered mountainous villages in northern Vietnam, killing at least 97 people and leaving 48 missing, the government said yesterday.

The toll from the disaster is expected to rise. Communication was still cut off with many affected areas as river waters rose to their highest level in four decades, disaster officials said.

Lao Cai province, bordering China, was the hardest hit with 38 people missing and 36 people killed since late last week, the National Centre for Flood and Storm Prevention said in an updated storm report.

Officials in Lao Cai, popular among foreign tourists for its mountain resort town of Sapa, said all of the dead and missing were local people whose homes were washed away by flash floods.

At least 33 people were killed in the neighbouring province of Yen Bai, many buried alive as landslides hit at night as they slept. About 1,600 passengers, more than half foreign tourists on their way to Sapa, have been stranded in Yen Bai since Saturday after their trains had to stop to avoid landslides, state media reported yesterday.

River waters in Yen Bai peaked on Sunday at close to the record level in 1968, the government said.

Roads and bridges were destroyed, preventing aid from reaching affected areas, while 4,230 homes remained inundated. The disasters struck a region far from Vietnam?s main rice and coffee production zones.

But with thousands of people being displaced and their homes and fields destroyed, the demand for the grain to aid flood victims will rise in coming days.