A 73-year-old woman was reported missing and more than 1,000 people were evacuated following torrential rain in central China's Hubei Province, local authorities said Wednesday.

Storms that started Tuesday swept 15 towns in the mountainous Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, forcing the evacuation of 1,011 people, the prefectural civil affairs bureau said in a statement. The missing woman, named Wu Chunlin, was swept away by floods, it said.

About 192,000 people live in the area affected by the storms.

The statement said 100 rooms of 39 households collapsed and an unspecified number of other houses were damaged. The storms also destroyed 475 kilometers of roads and damaged about 6,800 hectares of crops, of which 326 ha were destroyed.

Losses were estimated at 25.4 million yuan (3.7 million US dollars).

The prefecture could get more heavy rain over the next two days, the provincial meteorological center said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 13, 2009)