Violent rainstorms and floods have killed 40 people in southern China and 21 are missing, the official Xinhua news agency reported today.
It said floods killed 25 people and left 13 missing in Hunanprovince after days of continuous rain.
Violent storms on Friday and Saturday killed 15 in Guangdongprovince, where a further eight people were missing.
The rains also caused tens of millions of dollars of damagein the two provinces, destroying hundreds of houses, floodingfarmland, disrupting power supplies and telecommunications anddamaging roads and bridges.
Xinhua said 1.24 million people were affected in Hunan andmore rain was forecast.
In Guangdong, dozens of towns were affected. Worst hit wasthe town of Meizhou, where seven people were killed and two weremissing. There were also deaths in the cities of Heyuan andShaoguan, Xinhua said.
More than 18,000 people had been evacuated from floodedareas, the agency reported. It gave no further details.
