Dykes along China's Yangtze River began collapsing yesterday as officials warned the month-long fight against the worst flooding in four decades had stretched defences to breaking point.
"Seemingly endless" rainfall had caused dykes in the central Chinese province of Hubei to crumble in hundreds of places, Xinhua news agency reported.
Millions of peasants, officials and volunteers from the city were camping out in makeshift shacks on the dykes watching for leaks, as soldiers frantically sandbagged potential weak spots.
In Jiujiang, in eastern Jiangxi province, Saicheng Lake burst its banks despite the efforts of millions of people and engulfed a wide area of farmland.
In Anhui, according to a Foreign Ministry official in Hefei, the provincial capital, some 300,000 people have been mobilised to defend dykes, mainly at Anqing.
Large quantities of food aid and funds have been sent to the floodhit areas, Health Ministry officials said, as fears were raised of an outbreak of diseases in the region.
Meanwhile, 17 more people died after gushing waters from upstream yesterday worsened flooding in central Bangladesh, bringing the death toll to 235.
Officials said that despite "slight" recession of water levels of rivers in northern districts, the situation continued to deteriorate in most of central Bangladesh, affecting some 800,000 people.
Seven people died and more than 2,000 were left homeless on Thursday in Brazil's north-eastern city of Natal as floods ripped through houses, cut off roads and destroyed sewage systems, local police said.