Torrential rain from tropical storm Fengshen has killed 14 people in south China's Guangdong Province, up from nine on Friday, the local authority said on Saturday.

The strong rain had also left another nine missing, a provincial flood control headquarters spokesman said.

Fengshen, which means "God of Wind," had brought about downpours and made rivers swollen in most parts of Guangdong after landing at the province's Shenzhen City early Wednesday.

Although the tropical storm had left Shenzhen, strong rain continued to pound the city on Saturday, triggering landslides, forcing flights to be canceled and stranding passengers. But no casualties have been reported in the city.

The provincial flood control headquarters said Friday that strong rain had affected about 340,000 people, destroyed more than 1,200 houses and inundated more than 640,000 hectares of crops.

It had also damaged roads, power lines, reservoirs and embankments. The total direct economic loss was estimated at about 1.2 billion yuan (US$175 million) in Guangdong.

The headquarters has warned against rain-triggered geological disasters landslides and dispatched disaster relief teams to hard-hit areas.

Fengshen moved northward into neighboring Jiangxi Province on Thursday noon and was downgraded to a tropical low pressure storm. Prior to its landfall, landslides triggered by a heavy downpour killed a villager in Jiangxi's Yongfeng County. It was continuing to move northeastward.

Fengshen was downgraded from typhoon level. Hundreds were dead or missing in the Philippines after the typhoon hit the country last week.

(Xinhua News Agency June 29, 2008)