Downpours affect over 1m southern Chinese

Heavy downpours that have been battering south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region since Thursday have left three people dead and five missing.

Some 455,100 people in the region have been affected, with 5,523 of them evacuated as of 4 p.m. on Monday, local civil affairs authorities said. Of the dead people, one was killed by a lightning strike, one in a building collapse, and another drowned.

Some 28,630 hectares of crops have been damaged and 682 houses have collapsed. The rainfall has caused estimated direct economic losses of 183 million yuan (29.92 million U.S. dollars) in the region.

Four counties in Guangxi were hit by particularly heavy rain of up to 300 mm from Saturday morning to Sunday evening, according to the local meteorological department.

Rainstorms have also hit the southwestern province of Guizhou and the eastern province of Jiangxi since Wednesday.

In Guizhou, one person was killed by a rain-triggered landslide, another is missing after being swept away in a flood, and the lives of more than 220,000 have been affected, the provincial civil affairs department said.

The rain has also led to the evacuation of over 1,700 people and damaged 1,800 houses and 13,300 hectares of crops. An economic loss of 150 million yuan is estimated.

Jiangxi's civil affairs department said one person died after being buried in a landslide. More than 520,000 people in the province have been affected by the rain and 15,000 people have been relocated.

The rain has also caused an economic loss of 480 million yuan, with 49,400 hectares of crops and 459 houses damaged.

The water level of China's largest freshwater lake, located in Jiangxi, is above 18 meters, nearing the warning level of 19 meters.

The National Meteorological Center issued a rainstorm alert for southern China on Sunday, forecasting that heavy rain will sweep parts of Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Hubei and Anhui provinces as well as Guangxi.