The victims came from five different provinces, 10 of them from mountainous Son La, said an online report from the national flood and storm control department. State media had reported 16 dead on Friday.

A total of 27 people have been injured. Thousands of houses were inundated or destroyed while more than 97,700 hectares (241,000 acres) of crops had been damaged since floods and heavy rains ravaged the region on Wednesday night.

According to Vietnam News Agency, several remote communes in Quang Ninh and Son La provinces were cut off. Disaster officials have warned of possible landslides in the mountainous regions, it said.

Nearly 5,300 soldiers have been mobilised for search and rescue operations and to help people recover in the aftermath of the floods, said the online report from Hanoi.

Vietnam suffers from frequent floods and storms, which claim hundreds of lives every year between July and November.