Flooding turns fatal in south
Floods have swept China after rains even heavier than usual for the time of year.
Four people were confirmed dead as rescuers used boats to reach trapped residents. A heavy weekend storm has renewed fears that global warming is changing climate patterns in areas of the world, such as east Asia, that are already subject to extreme weather conditions.
The floods coincided with a new report saying that more than a quarter of a billion people in China were at risk of being affected by rising water levels due to the sheer pressure of their numbers as the country urbanises.
A quarter of China's coastline will fall beneath sea level over the next century if the trend is not reversed, the report found.
The latest storm hit the Pearl River Delta, the water system that meets the Pacific Ocean opposite Hong Kong. The region is home to the major cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen, and Guangdong province as a whole is the most populous in China, with 126 million residents.
The worst-affected area was the relatively small city of Qingyuan, which has four million residents. They were left swimming through waters that ran neckdeep through some roads.
The state-run Xinhua news agency said four people had been killed, 10 more were missing and scores of houses had collapsed across the province. More than 100,000 people have been moved from their homes.