Heavy flooding in China has killed at least 543 people this month and the toll is likely to jump when the summer flood season peaks in July and August, the China Dailyreported today.
Nearly 300 people were missing in just three of the hardest hit regions - Shaanxi, Sichuan and the municipality of Chongqing - an aid group has reported. The number nation-wide was unknown.
Accounts varied as to how many people were affected by floods that threaten to rival the deluges of 1998, which killed more than 4,000 people. It was not clear if the government figure counted any of the missing as dead.
Despite the high death toll, experts have said flooding so far this year was not bad as when the worst floods in half a century ravaged the country four years ago.
Torrential rains have hammered several of China's 19 provinces and regions, swamping some five million hectares of farmland and affecting 70 million people, the China Dailysaid.
Material damage from the deluges had risen to 20 billion yuan ($2.4 billion), it said.
Weather forecasts today predicted steady rainfall across most of the country in the coming days, including many of the waterlogged areas already reeling after weeks of rain.