Typhoon kills nearly 50 in Vietnam, Cambodia

Tens of thousands of people had fled their homes to escape flooding caused by Ketsana, which had already killed 246 when it struck the Philippines over the weekend as a weaker tropical storm.

Floodwaters hit swathes of Vietnam including ancient UN World Heritage sites, and aid workers across the region were trying to evacuate stranded people and get supplies to other survivors.

The death toll in Vietnam rose overnight to at least 38 people with another 10 people missing, and could climb higher, said an official from the flood and storm control committee in the central Vietnam city of Danang.

Ketsana made landfall in Vietnam on Tuesday afternoon and weakened in the night to become a tropical depression which had reached the border of Laos early today, an official from the national storm centre in Hanoi told AFP.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in Laos, a government spokesman there said, but Cambodian police and government officials said at least 11 had died in that country's northeastern and central regions.

"At least nine people were crushed last night when their houses fell down," said Chea Cheat, chief of the Red Cross office in central Kampong Thom province.