HANOI - AT LEAST five people have been killed in floods triggered by heavy rains in central Vietnam, emergency services said on Wednesday.

The dead included two children who were swept away when they tried to cross swollen rivers on their way home from school.

Three deaths were reported from Ha Tinh province and one each in Nghe An and Quang Nam provinces, the National Flood and Storm Prevention Committee said.

Dozens of homes have had their roofs blown off, hundreds of hectares of crops are damaged, and landslides have cut roads to two Quang Ngai mountain districts, reported the state-run Vietnam News Agency.

Vietnam's central region, which suffers a series of typhoons and storms every year, has again been hit by heavy rains since Friday. Rivers were still swollen on Wednesday although the rains had eased, officials said.

Last year, Vietnam was hit by seven major tropical storms or typhoons which triggered floods and landslides that left 435 people dead and missing, the government's General Statistics Office said. -- AFP