Five people have died in heavy rain and lightning storms in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur and north China's Inner Mongolia autonomous regions since Saturday.

Heavy rains hit Xinjiang from Saturday, battering a Mongolian tent at a scenic site in the Dongshan district of Urumqi, killing two and injuring eight others.

The Lanzhou-Urumqi railway linking Xinjiang and Gansu was cut off at the Erbao Township of Hami City, where the roadbed of the 312 state highway was damaged as well.

In Xinyuan county of the Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Ili in northern Xinjiang, a mud-rock flow with rocks one meter across racing down hills, damaging five roads and 56 houses together with one tent, resulting in losses of more than 100,000 yuan (US$13,157).

Local government officials are evacuating residents to safe areas, but the exact number is still unknown.

Heavy rains and hail left a hundred tourists stranded in the Tianshan Valley on Tuesday afternoon. "The road bed has subsided by five meters," said Wu Juan, a tour guide with the Shanshui Tourism Agency. In Wu's group alone there are 77 tourists, including 33 from Beijing.

Police in Kuqa County were attempting to get to the site, Wu said.

In Inner Mongolia, three villagers were killed by lightning at about 4:30 PM on Monday in the Biliutai Township of the Bairin Left Banner in the eastern part of the autonomous region.

Farmers He Ming, 50, Wang Zhong, 51, and Zhang Guohua, 42, were struck by lightning while working in fields.

(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2007)