Hong Kong  - Dutch photographer Hugh Van Es, who took one of the most famous images of the Vietnam War, has died in Hong Kong at the age of 67, a government-run radio station said Friday.

Van Es was best known for his picture of a group of people climbing a ladder from a rooftop to a US helicopter the day before the fall of Saigon to the north Vietnamese in 1975.

His wife, Annie, was quoted by RTHK radio as saying that Van Es had suffered a brain haemorrhage last week and died in hospital Friday morning. He had lived for more than three decades in Hong Kong.

Van Es worked for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong and later for the Associated Press and UPI wire agencies as he covered the Vietnam War from 1968 to its end in 1975.