BEIJING, June 20 (UPI) -- Torrential rains that have flooded vast stretches of China for a month showed no signs of a letup, spreading death and destruction, authorities said.
The official death toll exceeded 170.
In the beginning, the rains were welcome because they helped slake the country's parched lands hit by the worst drought in 60 years along the stretches of the Yangtze River.
But as they eventually assumed torrential proportions, the rains, reported to be the heaviest in 300 years in some areas, triggered massive flooding, landslides and disasters in the east, central and southern regions, killing dozens of people and cattle, destroying valuable crops and driving millions of people out of their homes.
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Some homes were under 10 feet of water.
China Daily, quoting relief agencies and flood-control authorities, said the regions hardest hit recently included the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Guangdong.
The floods have cut off roads, breached dikes and inundated villages, the report said. The latest round of rains forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
In Zhejiang alone, 2.7 million residents in nine cities and 50 counties had been affected as of Sunday morning, the report said. Flash floods forced nearly 1,000 businesses to suspend production and more than 400 roads remained cut off.
In Jiangsu province, 16 workers were buried after a house collapsed Sunday, As of Monday, aid workers had managed to rescue only six people.
In Hubei province, two people were killed in floods over the weekend and another two remained missing.
In Shanghai, heavy rains caused more than 300 airlines to delay or cancel flights during the weekend.
Some farmers refused to leave flooded homes, wanting to protect their belongings.
Meteorologists have forecast more downpours in some of the affected provinces in the coming days.
