Vietnam ordered the evacuation on Friday of thousands of people in its central and northern regions to avoid flash floods and landslides triggered by prolonged torrential rains that have killed at least 27.

Flooding hit the key coffee-growing region of the Central Highlands and four central coastal provinces, killing at least eight in Binh Thuan province and four in Nghe An Province, a government report said.

State-run Vietnam Television said eight people, including two children, had died when landslides buried their homes in the mountainous northern province of Cao Bang Friday morning.

The channel showed footage of rescuers pulling the body of a baby girl from the mud.

Six drowned in four other provinces and one in the Mekong Delta province of Dong Thap. The floods also displaced thousands of people, inundated 5,000 houses, submerged nearly 40,000 hectares of mainly rice and corn crops and blocked traffic.

"The rains, which in the past weeks have triggered landslides and floods causing human deaths and property damage, are expected to continue in the coming days in the country's north and central north," the National Flood and Storm Prevention Center said.

The center ordered provincial authorities to move people out of low-lying areas.

More than 1,600 households in the central highland provinces of Dak Nong, Daklak and Lam Dong have been evacuated, the center said. Rice and instant noodles have been sent to the Central Highlands.

Natural disasters, especially floods and storms, kill several hundred people in Vietnam each year, mainly during the storm season between May and October.

This year's rains and floods did not damage the region's coffee crop as coffee plants are planted on higher ground. But rains have delayed several deliveries to Saigon Port as exporters temporarily stopped processing, traders said.

Further to the south, seasonal floods are forecast to rise quickly in the next five days in the Mekong Delta rice basket, which generates half of Vietnam's grain output. However, most of the summer-autumn rice crop has already been harvested in key growing provinces bordering Cambodia.

At the same time in Pakistan, heavy rain and strong wind lashed the southern port city of Karachi, toppling power lines and buildings and killing 15 people, police said on Friday.
 
Heavy monsoon rains have hit many parts of Pakistan in recent weeks, leaving scores of people dead.

Also in Ethiopia, helicopters airdropped inflatable tubes on Friday to stranded Ethiopians wading in flood waters that have killed nearly 900 people and displaced almost 50,000 across the country. Since early August, heavy rains have burst rivers and sent devastating flash floods all around Ethiopia.

(China Daily August 19, 2006)