HANOI, Oct 5 (AFP) - The death toll in month-old floods in southern Vietnam's Mekong Delta hit 200 Friday with children accounting for a full 164 of those killed, disaster relief officials said.

The damage to the delta's battered infrastructure is now estimated at at least 40 million dollars, an official from the regional disaster relief centre told AFP.

The death toll from this year's floods is now thought unlikely to top the 407 killed in 2000, when the water levels reached their highest level since 1961, but the floods are still the second worst in 40 years.

It is the third year in a row that Vietnam has been hit by killer floods -- some 600 people died on the central coast in 1999.

The annual spate on the Mekong has also claimed at least 56 lives in neighbouring Cambodia this year.

ltl-kir/nj AFP

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