Fr Anthony Dang Huu Nam, a Catholic priest in Nghe An province, says the victims are from a rural village called Yen Thanh.
He claimed to have heard that those found dead in Essex were part of a group of more than 100 people travelling to Europe.
He told the BBC: “According to a few sources that have told me, in this case they were many people, more than 100 were on their way to a new life, but 39 died.
“A few families confirmed the deaths of their relatives who are the victims of this tragic journey.”
Fr Anthony, who has among those who have led efforts to gather contact details for all the families involved in the tragedy, led prayers all day on Saturday for the situation.
“The whole district is covered in sorrow,” he told Reuters news agency. “This is a catastrophe for our community.”
Experts have said Vietnamese families are paying smugglers large sums of money to help transport relatives into Europe via Russia.
Bernie Gravett, a former Metropolitan police officer who now advises the EU on human trafficking, said migrants from Vietnam often enter Europe via a different route to people coming from China – the country of origin police previously identified for the container victims.
He told BBC Breakfast: “The Chinese would generally come down through Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, across through Turkey and then up what we call the Balkan…
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