Hanoi - Landslides triggered by heavy rains have killed at least 11 people, including three children, and injured four others in northern Vietnam, an official said Friday.

The landslides early Thursday morning killed three people in Hoang Xu Phi district, seven others in Vi Xuyen district and one in Xi Man district in Ha Giang province, 290 kilometres north of Hanoi, according to Vu Toan Thang of the province's disaster department.

"The landslides occurred suddenly, while people were sleeping, after it had been raining for days," Thang said.

Thang said the landslides also destroyed 11 houses and several irrigation works, bridges and roads.

Hanoi - Police in Vietnam launched a criminal investigation into protests over land claimed by a Catholic church parish in Hanoi, claiming protesters illegally broke into the disputed plot, officials said Thursday.

Hundreds of parishioners of the Thai Ha Diocese in Hanoi broke down a 6-metre section of a wall surrounding the 16,000-square-metre plot on August 15, erected two icons of the Virgin Mary and a crucifix, and began praying.

Both the church and the Hanoi government claim ownership of the land. A church official said the church has papers proving the land belongs to it, while the People's Committee of Hanoi said the church granted the land to the city in the early 1960s.

Hanoi - Vietnam's inflation rate in hit 28.3 per cent year-on-year in August, the highest level in 17 years, local press reported Tuesday.

A report issued by the Government Statistics Office late Monday said the inflation rate rose by 1.56 per cent compared with the previous month, after falling from 2.2 per cent in June to 1.1 per cent in July.

The report said the skyrocketing rise in consumer prices was triggered by price increases in food, transportation, housing and construction. Food prices were up 44.15 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Hanoi  - Vietnam is to investigate cracks that appeared on concrete sections built by a Japanese contractor for an underwater highway tunnel in Ho Chi Minh City, a city official said Monday.

Cracks started to appear in early 2008 on all four of the concrete structures, which were slated for the construction of the new Thu Thiem Tunnel under the Saigon River, the Lao Dong newspaper said.

The newspaper said the cracks may ruin the structures, which cost more than two trillion dong (126 million dollars) to build.

"We don't know yet what caused the cracks," said Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, deputy chairwoman of the city's People's Committee.

Hanoi - Flooding from heavy rains over the past two weeks has severely damaged 15,000 hectares of rice paddies in far northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese press reported Monday.

The Agriculture Ministry had sent an urgent message Sunday to farmers in northern provinces to transplant seedlings to rescue their autumn rice crop if floodwaters recede before August 25, the website VietnamNet. vn reported.

If the fields remain flooded past that date, farmers would have to wait for the winter crop in October, and the government has promised food aid.

Hanoi - An ethnic Vietnamese US citizen whom authorities prevented from leaving Vietnam for three weeks for political reasons has been allowed to return to the United States, the Vietnamese government said Thursday.

Charlie Ly, a prominent member of the Vietnamese-American community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been trying to leave Vietnam since July 24.

"As far as I know, Charlie Ly has left Vietnam," government spokesman Le Dung said a press conference.