Hanoi  - A 21-year-old Vietnamese man died when he fell into a tub of cooking bran for fish food, a police officer said Friday.

The accident took place Thursday in the Chau Phu district of An Giang province in southern Vietnam, said Nguyen Thanh Tong, the district's deputy chief of police.

"In the centre of the tub, there is a spinning rotor to knead the raw materials," Tong said. "When the bran started to smell burnt, he tried to stir it better, but his hand was tugged into the rotor and he fell into the tub."

Tong said it was the second time this year that someone had been killed in this way in his district.

A total of 239 people died in 231 workplace accidents in Vietnam in the first six months of 2009, the country's Occupational Safety and Health Department said. Department officials have said in the past that many workplace accidents are never reported. (dpa)