A total of 40 people have been killed and some others left missing in natural disaster in July, the General Statistics Office (GSO) has announced.

According to the GSO, the continuous natural disasters triggering across the country last month, especially the storms No 1 and 2, destroyed 13,000 hectares of crops and over 2,000 houses, resulting in economic losses of nearly 1,282 billion VND (roughly 66.7 million USD).

The northern port city of Hai Phong has been seriously affected with losses reaching about 1,200 billion VND.

The storm-hit localities are continuing efforts to overcome the damaging consequences to soon stablise people’s lives.

Located in the tropical monsoon area, Vietnam have been directly affected by the Asia-Pacific storm zone and one of the top ten countries worldwide having to suffer from natural disasters such as storms, foods, landslides, and droughts, according scientists.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said in the past decade, natural disasters left a bout 750 people dead and missing each year, causing estimated economic losses of about 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.

The country should continue to cope with more severe natural disasters due to the effects of global climate change, environmental experts warned./.