Continuous rainfall leaves at least 61 dead in China

Photo taken on July 3, 2016 shows surging water under an unfinished bridge in Xuancheng City, east China's Anhui Province. Many regions in Anhui were flooded due to heavy rainfall in recent days. (Xinhua/Meng Dingbo)

Continuous rainfall over the past two weeks in parts of China has left at least 61 people dead and 14 others missing, local authorities said Sunday.

In central Hubei Province, torrential rain has left 34 people dead and 11 others missing. In eastern Anhui Province, 27 people have died and another three went missing, according to local authorities.

In Anhui, a level-IV emergency response was launched Sunday by the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

In order to aid disaster relief work, authorities allocated 3,000 tents and 3,000 folding beds to the province, in addition to 5,000 quilts.

Over 17 million people have been affected by the rain in the two provinces, with 974,000 people relocated. The rain also destroyed over 400,000 rooms and affected 1.4 million hectares of crops.

Several monitoring stations at Dongting Lake in central China's Hunan Province have reported rising water levels over the weekend as more water flowed into the lake.

More torrential rain is expected on Sunday night through Monday in the province, according to meteorological authorities in Hunan. It also warned of landslide, floods and other geological disasters.

More than 20,000 people in the province have been relocated as rainfall ruined houses and crops in the region.

China's largest fresh water lake Poyang Lake, located further downstream of the Yangtze River in east China's Jiangxi Province, also began to take in water amid continuous rainfall.

To prevent floods, authorities in Hubei deepened a reservoir by blasting its bottom with explosives.

Heavy rainfall has also forced authorities in the province to cancel 28 train services from Sunday to Tuesday. Expressways in the province have been disrupted 16 times.