Floods caused by days of heavy rains have killed at least 120 people in southwest China, left scores more missing, and caused authorities to put the giant Three Gorges Dam on alert.
Flash floods and mudslides killed at least 87 people in Sichuan province and 33 in neighbouring Chongqing municipality, local government officials said today.
"The death toll of 87 is not the final figure ... We are still searching for a lot of missing people," said an official with Sichuan provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.
More than 60 people are still missing in Sichuan and Chongqing.
In Dazhou, the hardest-hit part of Sichuan, flood levels had risen to 8 metres, enough to submerge four-storey buildings, said an official from the provincial government's disaster relief office.
"So far, 10,000 people are still trapped, about 6,000 of whom were trapped by flooding and more than 3,000 by landslides that have cut off roads," said the official, surnamed Liu.
Relief efforts had begun, but the blocked roads meant the Red Cross was distributing aid by boat, Sparrow said.
"Schools and factories are all closed and some areas have no water and power supply," Liu said.
About 380,000 people in Sichuan had been displaced, many taking shelter in tents, while 100,000 people in Chongqing had been evacuated to safe areas, officials said.
The China Youth Daily newspaper said the floods had damaged nearly 150,000 buildings and 400 bridges, causing economic losses of about 1.87 billion yuan ($226 million).
Rice and corn crops had been washed away, but it was too early to estimate losses, officials said. China put the Three Gorges Dam on alert as water levels rose, state media said. The world's largest hydro-electric project on the Yangtze River is to the east of the flood-disaster zone.
Water levels at hydrological stations were above "warning levels" and rising and navigation on the giant reservoir above the dam had been halted for the first time, Xinhua news agency said.