HANOI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- At least 29 people have been killed and five others are missing after Typhoon Son Tinh triggered flooding in Vietnam's northern and central regions, local media reported on Thursday.

Of the dead, 15 were in the northern mountainous province of Yen Bai, six in the northern mountainous province of Son La, three in the northern midland province of Phu Tho, three in the central province of Thanh Hoa, and the others in the northern mountainous provinces of Lao Cai and Hoa Binh, online newspaper VietnamPlus under Vietnam News Agency reported.

Typhoons and tropical depressions are more likely to hit the northern part of the sea at the beginning of this rainy season and will move towards the south in late 2018, threatening to affect Vietnam's central region.

In 2017, a record number of 16 typhoons and four low depressions occurred in the sea. The typhoons claimed the lives of 386 people in Vietnam in the year, damaged more than 600,000 houses and caused economic losses of about 60 trillion Vietnamese dong (2.6 billion U.S. dollars).