Floods triggered by heavy rains since Friday have destroyed more than half of the winter crops in northern Vietnam, the Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control, or CCFSC, said in a statement Tuesday.

Rainfall ranged between 500 and 800 millimeters over the weekend in many northern provinces, the CCFSC said.

Floods have wiped out 256,000 hectares of crops of a total of 400,000 hectares of the area's winter crops, mostly corn and beans.

Farmers haven't begun sowing the seeds for the new rice crop, so rice output won't likely be affected by the flooding.

The floods killed at least 49 people, and seven are reported missing.

They have damaged more than 123,000 houses, 650 bridges, 170 kilometers of dikes and 186 kilometers of rural roads, the center said.

Nguyen The Luong, a senior CCFSC official, told Dow Jones that losses due to the floods are still being assessed, with no figures available.

In Hanoi alone, the worst flooding in over two decades killed 18 people and caused an estimated VND3 trillion (US$181 million) in damage, state media reported.

"Rains in northern Vietnam have subsided, with rainfall ranging from 20 millimeters to 30 millimeters, but heavy rains will start again from Thursday until Saturday this week," said Bui Minh Tang, director of the National Center for Hydrometeorology Forecast.