Seven people were killed and three others remain missing after severe downpours battered Linshui County in southwest China's Sichuan Province Saturday, said the county government on Sunday.
Heavy rainfall hit Linshui, a county in Sichuan's Guangyuan City, from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday, causing disasters in 45 townships, said the county government.
As of Sunday, local governments had relocated more than 23,300 people to safer places and rescued 604 people.
The rain has affected about 2,694 hectares of farmland and thousands of livestock in the region. Search work is under way.
Continuous heavy rains have battered Sichuan since Sept. 8, leaving about 2.5 million people in nine cities in a state of disaster and forcing 160,000 among them to relocate to avoid risks, said the flood control headquarters of Sichuan.
The rainstorms have collapsed about 8,200 housing units in the province and brought flood peaks to some major rivers.
At least eight were missing in the neighboring Chongqing municipality,where continuous rainfalls have brought geological risks, such as landslides and urban inland inundation.
Heavy rain will continue to batter southwest and central China, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) forecast on Sunday.
Torrential rain will hit Sichuan, Chongqing, and Shaanxi from Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon. The northeast part of Sichuan will see rainstorms with precipitation of up to 120 mm.
The NMC maintained a blue alert for downpours in the country's western regions, which have seen substantial rainfall in the past week.
Xinhua
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