The storm killed at least 92 people and left 19 missing, according to the latest toll from the national flood and storm control committee in Hanoi.

Some areas remained surrounded by floodwaters but military helicopters expected to make seven flights on Thursday to deliver instant noodles to the stricken areas, a military officer, who refused to be named, told AFP.

They had made four flights on Wednesday, he said before a helicopter left with hundreds of boxes of instant noodles for Tam Ky town in Quang Nam province, near the heart of the area where Ketsana made landfall with vicious winds and pounding rain on Tuesday.

"More soldiers were mobilised on Thursday to come to the aid of the stricken," said an official from the flood and storm committee.

State media said a total of three helicopters were assigned to the relief mission.

Residents have complained that government help has been slow to reach them, and officials said the scale of the disaster made aid delivery difficult.

"We haven't received any relief or noodles or clean water from the authorities but we try to help each other. We share food with our neighbours," said Huynh Ba Phuong, 38, a construction worker still living late Wednesday in a flooded house with his wife and two teenage children.

He said they sleep on a bed resting atop a table and chairs in the water-logged house.

More than 400,000 people left their homes before, during and after the typhoon, Government Office Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Thursday, VNExpress news website reported.

But some who decided to stay told AFP in Quang Nam that they are still living in their water-logged houses and fending for themselves.

"I think that about four out of 10 households have people that have to spend the night on the roofs of their houses," Vo Thi Muoi, 73, a farmer who had just taken a boat out in search of food, said late Wednesday.

The typhoon caused damage initially estimated at 120 million dollars to Vietnam, the government said on Thursday in a detailed report obtained by AFP.

It said more than 170,000 homes were flooded while a similar number had damaged roofs, and more than 6,300 other houses collapsed, mostly in Quang Nam province.

Thousands of farm animals died and almost 50,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of farmland were damaged in the country which is the world's second-largest rice exporter.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Thursday visited flood-hit central provinces, where local officials asked the government for 24,100 tonnes (26,510 tons) of rice and about 40 million dollars to confront the disaster.

Joint teams of government, United Nations and non-governmental groups were preparing to head out to six affected provinces on Thursday to assess what assistance is needed, the UN said.

Most of the deaths occurred in the fishing province of Quang Ngai, where 27 died, and in Kon Tum which recorded 21 deaths, said the flood and storm control official.

Kon Tum is a mountainous province with a large population of poor ethnic minority tribes.

Although the typhoon has passed, Kon Tum and other Central Highland provinces were warned of serious flooding, flash floods and landslides from rising river levels, the state Vietnam News reported.

Several districts in Quang Nam, including the tourist town of Hoi An, were still affected by flooding but the water had begun a considerable retreat, an official from the local flood and storm committee said.

earlier related report
Brown waters tell story of Vietnam typhoon disaster
It is difficult to tell where the rice fields end and the river begins.

From a Vietnamese army helicopter above Quang Nam province in central Vietnam on a mercy mission for victims of Typhoon Ketsana, brown flood waters tell the story of the disaster.

Many houses are surrounded by a sea of water that submerges two-thirds of the ground floors. There are no signs of life. There is no more road access. No boats are visible either.

Ketsana hit Vietnam on Tuesday after devastating the Philippines, where it killed at least 277 people.

The death toll in Vietnam rose to 92 on Thursday, an official said. Across the central region there were 19 people missing and 199 injured.

On the main North-South National Highway One, a line of trucks stretches for kilometres (miles), unable to move further south into the disaster zone. The black asphalt of the road contrasts with the brown water on either side.

Closer to Danang city, where the helicopter lifted off on a sunny morning, the ground is dryer and there are signs of normal life two days after Ketsana made landfall near Quang Nam province, driving close to 200,000 from their homes ahead of its path.

Residents of Quang Nam who decided to stay have told AFP they are still living in their water-logged houses, where the only way in and out is by boat. They complained government aid is too slow in coming while they fend for themselves.

A senior military officer said relief flights have been increased, with seven expected on Thursday after four the previous day.

The Mi-8 helicopter is loaded with more than 350 cardboard boxes of instant noodles for the needy somewhere in the surrounding districts.

It touches down in the middle of a road in Tam Ky, a town about 50 kilometres south of Danang, where more than two dozen soldiers load the noodles onto a military truck.

They will be put onto boats and taken to people cut off by the floodwaters, soldiers said.

"It's very difficult to describe my feelings," an air force colonel says over the noise of the aircraft. "We give them the goods and then we have to go away."

Vietnam suffers annually from tropical storms and typhoons, but this year's toll exceeds the deaths when Tropical Storm Durian killed at least 70 in the country's south and Typhoon Xangsane left more than 70 dead in central Vietnam, both in 2006.

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