The death toll from a week of heavy rains and floods rose to 31 Saturday as the worst storms to hit Vietnam's capital in more than two decades left many of the city's streets inundated with more than three feet (a meter) of water, disaster officials said, according to AP. Seven more deaths were reported across the country on Saturday, including four in central Vietnam and three in northern provinces, as several days of heavy rains finally began tapering off. The rains in Hanoi overwhelmed the city's antiquated drainage system. Vietnamese television showed images of people navigating the city's streets in small boats. Widespread power outages struck the capital. About 17 inches (420 millimeters) of rain had fallen in two days in Hanoi as of Saturday evening, the heaviest rainfall in more than two decades, according to the national weather forecast center. In all, seven deaths were reported in northern Vietnam. The death toll in central Vietnam, where storms lashed several provinces earlier in the week, rose to 24 on Saturday. The worst-hit province was Nghe An, where 12 people died, including four children who were swept away while walking home from school, said disaster official Ngo Quang Toan. In the neighboring province of Ha Tinh, eight people died in flooding that inundated more than 42,000 homes, disaster official Bui Hong Phong said. Some 50,000 evacuees in the province began to return to their homes on Saturday to begin cleaning up, Phong said. Four people were killed in the central provinces of Quang Ngai and Quang Binh, officials there said. Vietnam is prone to floods, which kill hundreds each year.
