Heavy rain in the past two days killed two people, damaged crops, triggered floods and threatened reservoir safety in south China, officials said on Tuesday.

The rain has affected more than 3.5 million people and damaged nearly 300,000 hectares of farmland in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the provinces of Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei and Guangdong, forcing 32,000 people to evacuate, local officials said.

One person was crushed to death after a house collapsed in Guangxi and another was killed by landslides in Guangdong, officials said.

The losses were estimated at more than 1 billion yuan (143 million US dollars), according to preliminary figures.

Water levels in some mid-sized and large reservoirs have risen above the warning levels.

Guangdong Province has reported 1.5 million people affected and nearly 37,000 ha of crops threatened. The rain halted production at 156 factories and shut down 17 roads, local officials said.

Among the 32 key large reservoirs in the province, one was discharging flood water while the others were safe, officials said, but more heavy rain was forecast in the next two days, posing further safety challenges.

The Jiangxi government has updated the number of affected people from 410,000 to nearly 1.2 million. More than 70,000 troops and residents have been mobilized to cope with the impact of the weather, evacuating 166,000 people and saving 1,174 others trapped by floods.

Precipitation in Jiangxi exceeded 100 mm in 35 counties and 200 mm in four counties in just two days, causing an estimated loss of 476 million yuan, according to officials.

Meteorological authorities in Hubei said the region had experienced the worst rainstorm in five decades, causing estimated losses of 20 million yuan.

With more heavy rain expected in most of south China, local meteorological centers in Chongqing, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, Jiangxi and Guangxi had been asked to have staff work shifts around the clock.

The latest forecast from the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said that the rain, which would generally be 30 percent to 70 percent heavier than the same period in normal years, was set to sweep central Hubei Province, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, east of the earthquake-hit Sichuan Province and the southern part of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces in the coming days.

The rain was expected to begin on Thursday when cold and warm air currents met, which would trigger floods and landslides. Some regions would get torrential rain accompanied by gale-force winds and thunderstorms, said Yang Guiming, NMC chief forecaster.

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) on Monday maintained its orange alert, the second highest level, for rain in south China.

The CMA issues an orange alert only when the precipitation is expected to exceed 50 mm within three hours, or when more rain is forecast after precipitation has exceeded 50 mm.

(Xinhua News Agency June 11, 2008)