Floods claim 536 lives in China

At least 536 people are confirmed dead, 137 missing and about 45 million residents affected in severe floods in the southern and eastern parts of China since the second week of June, latest government figures said on Friday.

Floodwaters swept 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities causing an economic loss of 20.352 billion yuan (2.45 billion US dollars), the Office of State Floods Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said.

Over 76 million acres of crops was damaged.

The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Guangdong Province in southern China and Fujian Province in southeastern China suffered the most.

In Guangxi, floods damaged 91 reservoirs and 53.4 kilometres of dikes.

At Wuzhou, a city in Guangxi, the water level in the Xijiang River rose to 26.75 metres, 9.45 metres above the danger mark.

Wuzhou and some other cities have decided to postpone the senior high school entrance examinations.

Rainstorms in Guangdong caused the roadbed of the Longchuan-Huizhou section of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway to cave in on Tuesday. Transportation has not been resumed yet and repair work is still underway.

Continuous torrential rain and ensuing floods in the northern part of Fujian Province forced the Xiamen Railway Station to suspend all trains after some railway lines were disrupted.