Thirty-seven people in Sichuan Province have been killed after days of torrential rain affected 7.22 million people in 21 counties, sources from the Ministry of Civil Affairs said yesterday.

The disasters have forced more than 428,000 to flee their homes in flood-prone areas.

Another seven people were missing after storms that demolished around 30,000 houses and damaged another 106,000.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Finance have allocated 23 million yuan (US$ 2.8 million) and 3,000 tents to flood-stricken areas.

Dazhou, a city in northeastern Sichuan Province, has suffered the worst floods in a century since Wednesday and the local government has helped locals rebuild their homes.

"The flood receded on Saturday and the disaster alarms have been withdrawn," said an official from the flood-prevention office of the city's government.

Measures have been taken to prevent possible epidemics after the floods while the cleanup of mud on the streets is being done, said the official, refusing to give her name.

"The floods have left 22 people dead in Dazhou alone," she said.

All roads and railways that were cut off by the water have been re-opened to traffic thanks to speedy repairs, she added.

Highways leading to the city, about 450 kilometres away from the provincial capital of Chengdu, were cut off and only several small routes were passable.

The city streets were under water, with levels as high as the third floor of some buildings.

Water and power supplies that were knocked out by the floods also resumed on Sunday after almost 24 hours, the official said.

Rain in the flood-hit areas is expected to decrease in the coming week and further risk of flood is also dwindling, said Yang Guiming, a weather forecaster from the National Meteorological Centre.

But Yang's centre warned yesterday that torrential rain might drench areas like Jiangsu, southern Anhui, northwestern Jiangxi and northern and western Hunan provinces.

There are hundreds of deaths each year caused by floods set off by summer rain. Rivers overflow and water rushes down mountains bare of trees owing to decades of farming and logging.

The latest casualties bring the toll from this year's floods to around 800 people killed or missing, with the main July-August flood season just starting.

The worst affected areas have been the provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangdong, as well as the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, where unusually heavy rain has caused rivers to swell.

Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu yesterday urged government officials at various levels to keep a closer watch on rising water and flood risk, and draw up emergency plans to look after people in these areas.

Yet while Sichuan Province is suffering from floods, the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan and Zhejiang are having to face the serious problem of drought.

Some rivers have run dry in the city of Zunyi, Guizhou Province, in Southwest China.

More than 300,000 people and 280,000 livestock have barely enough water to drink and around 5,100 hectares of crops have withered, according to the local department of flood and drought prevention.

Source: China Daily