China floods kill 55

At least 55 people have been killed over the past 10 days in torrential rain and flooding across south China, and more gales and storms were expected in the coming days, the government said yesterday.

Another 1.3 million had been forced to flee to higher ground, China's Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a notice on its website, adding that it had despatched disaster prevention teams to the affected areas to aid local authorities.

State TV showed submerged streets and houses in towns along the Xijiang river in the southern regions of Guangdong and Guangxi.

In the Guangxi town of Changzhou, a section of the Xijiang breached an embankment built by residents, inundating farmland and forcing the evacuation of 3,000 people, Xinhua news agency reported.

There were no reports of casualties or house collapses from the burst, the report said.

China's National Meteorological Centre said heavy rain would continue and precipitation in the provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan would be 30 to 70 per cent greater than in the same period last year.