Vietnam widened the search on Thursday for victims of flash floods spawned by Typhoon Damrey which Prime Minister Phan Van Khai said had caused "extremely serious losses". With 54 people dead or missing in the north, a letter from Khai read out on state television asked the Fatherland Front, the Communist Party's mass organisation, to appeal to the nation for help. So far, soldiers had recovered the bodies of 25 of the 51 people swept away in Yen Bai province, 180 km (110 miles) northwest of Hanoi, a provincial official told Reuters. "The search is still under way, so we have no final toll yet," he said. State television said 32 bodies had been found while one person was reported killed by a landslide in the neighbouring province of Lao Cai and two more died in Hoa Binh. The television showed pictures of flattened houses, submerged schools and rescuers searching for bodies along rivers. Seven died in similar torrents in Thailand while China and the Philippines each reported 16 deaths. The deaths took the known toll to at least 79 in Damrey's rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan -- where the economic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion -- Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand.
