Five people were killed and more than 700,000 people were affected after fresh rainstorms ravaged northwest, southwest and central China.

Nearly 150 millimeters of rain hit Jingchuan County, northwestern Gansu Province, between 7:40 PM and 10:40 PM on Tuesday, an official with the Gansu Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said.

The rainstorm, which destroyed 430 houses, left two dead, one missing, three injured and affected nearly 100,000 people in 72 villages, the official said, adding that road and agricultural facilities were also seriously damaged.

Two farmers in Huocheng County, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, were swept away by floods triggered by heavy rain on Tuesday night and died.

At least 48 herdsmen and 13,000 goats have been stranded for nearly two days in a mountainous area in northwestern Xinjiang after a landslide cut off their path on Monday.

Fallen rocks and mud have erected a huge dam between two opposite mountains in Jinghe County of Bortala prefecture, which is about 400 km northwest of the capital city of Urumqi. Flooding water has filled in the dam, forming two lakes of 3,000 sq. m. and 1,000 sq.m. each and completely blocking the mountain paths.

Two teams of rescuers and experts, carrying communication equipment and food and drinking water, have been searching new access to the herdsmen, who were depasturing their goats in a mountainous pasturing area when the landslide suddenly rushed down.

A rainstorm on Monday in southwestern Guizhou Province caused one death and affected 640,000 people

Xifeng and Yinjiang counties saw rainfall of 100 to 114 millimeters on Monday, while the downtown area of Guiyang, Guizhou's capital, received 64 millimeters of rain from 8 AM to 4 PM on Wednesday.

Some 425 houses have collapsed in the rainstorms in Guizhou.

Rain which began on Saturday has also swollen rivers in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in central Hunan Province.

More than 100,000 people have been called up to protect the embankments of the rivers, where the water level was three to seven meters higher than the warning line.

Longshan, a county in the prefecture, saw 317 millimeters of rain, the strongest storm in a decade.

The water level at the middle section of the Yangtze River has also risen to the warning lines.

At 2 PM Wednesday, the water level of the river's section in Wuhan, capital city of Hubei Province, was 24.96 meters, approaching the 25-meter line which marks the need to start implementing flood control plans.

It is estimated that the flood would push up the river to 25.05 meters at about 8 PM Thursday as more downpours are expected in three days in the river's upper and middle reaches, making the flood control situation even worse.

Surveillance will be reinforced along the river, particularly at dams, water gates and reservoirs in the wake of upcoming flood crest, said Li Xiansheng, mayor of Wuhan and also the commander in chief of the city's flood control operation.

The water level of the middle and lower sections of the Hanjiang River, the biggest branch of the Yangtze, has already exceeded warning lines.

About 26,000 people have been mobilized to protect the dikes in Hubei Province.

Meanwhile, the water level of the swollen Huaihe River in the east is rising again due to continuous rain. The river has been swollen for more than 20 days.

Water level at the Wangjiaba, a key hydrological station of the Huaihe, rose to 27.63 meters at 3 PM Wednesday, 0.13 meters higher than the warning line.

"The flood control work of the Huaihe is still at a critical period as the water level has been high for a long time and many sections of the river's dikes are facing an increasing risk of being breached," said an official with the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

In Anhui Province, a tornado hammered 33 villages in ten townships for 40 minutes early Wednesday morning, bringing down 133 houses and destroying 290 hectares of cropland and 90,000 trees. It also cut off many electricity and telephone wires, incurring an economic lose of 21 million yuan (US$2.77 million).

No casualties have been reported.

China's death toll from natural disasters was 715 with 129 people missing by July 16 this year, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions, along with its branches in the flood-hit regions, has extended 10.7 million yuan (US$1.4 million) to help people survive the mischance.

(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2007)