Seven people died and 25 are missing after five consecutive days of heavy rain which swamped Guangdong Province.

Conditions are extremely severe in Guangzhou, Shaoguan and Zengchu which are all threatened by floods.

Civic leaders in Guangdong sent special rescue groups to flood-hit regions over the weekend, and flood control departments at all levels are closely monitoring local conditions.

Residents in Zhengzhou, capital of Central China's Henan Province, found themselves virtually cut off after a severe hailstorm hit the city on Friday evening.

Scores of people were struck by the egg-shaped hailstones. Telecommunications, electricity and water supplies were cut temporarily, and traffic snarled.

Service hotlines for power, telecommunications and weather received thousands of calls in the wake of the disaster. The mayor's hotline was jammed with complaints.

Heavy winds and rainfall caused trees to fall down, dirt to pile up along streets and segments of outdoor advertisement billboards to become scattered across the city.

Witnesses said many cars parked under trees in central areas were smashed to pieces when the trees were uprooted.

In Weisi Street in the centre of the city, 11 huge billboards were smashed, leaving lamps exposed and shards of glass across nearby streets.

The skylights of many shopping centres in the street were also badly damaged by the hailstone.

The city electricity supply department said the bad weather caused a power cut in at least four major regions on Friday evening.

Railways, airports and public communications temporarily stopped with more than 300 passengers stranded in Zhengzhou Airport.

Yao Daixian, vice-mayor of Zhengzhou, said on Saturday that at least 10 people were killed by the hailstorm. He admitted the city government had not expected damage to be so severe.

The city government has issued an urgent notice to the public, calling for better precautions against bad weather in summer.

Officials with the Henan Meteorological Station pointed to a lack of an effective warning system.

"We released an urgent warning about the hailstorm an hour before it arrived, but we do not have an efficient way of informing ordinary people fully," said Gu Wanglong, director of the station.

He called on the local government to build an emergency weather warning system to reduce damage in future floods and other disasters.

Gu said they could not rule out further heavy hailstorms in Zhengzhou, or in Henan in future, but he added large hailstones were extremely rare in the province.

(China Daily July 22, 2002)