A father and son have been found living in the jungle more than 40 years after they fled US bombing during the Vietnam War.

Ho Van Thanh left his home village with his baby son Ho Van Lang in 1971 after a mine blast killed his wife and two of his children.

The pair apparently survived by foraging for fruit, lived in a timber treehouse and wore loin cloths made from tree bark.

The authorities were alerted after locals searching for firewood spotted the men deep in the forest in Quang Ngai province's Tay Tra district.

A team was set up to look for the pair - now aged 82 and 41 - and found them after a five hour search.

When found, Ho Van Thanh was too weak to walk and had to be taken out of the jungle on a stretcher.

The father could speak a little of the region's Cor language but the son only knew a few words.

The pair have been checked by doctors and a decision must now be made on how to reintegrate them to society.

Ho Van Thanh is believed to have lived a normal life in the hamlet of Tra Kem, but fled into the jungle after the explosion that decimated his family.

The men are thought to have grown their own food and even cultivated tobacco during their time in the wilderness.

Another son, Ho Van Tri, told Vietnamese newspaper VnExpress that he found them hiding out around two decades ago but could not convince them to return home with him.

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era conflict that claimed millions of military and civilian lives and left surviving soldiers and victims traumatised.

The US dropped millions of tonnes of bombs on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the war, which ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces.