China predicts further downpours after 71 die
Mon Jun 11, 2007

BEIJING (Reuters) - Torrential rain has killed at least 71 people in floods, house collapses and rockslides across southern China with more heavy rain predicted for much of this week, state media said on Monday.

About 643,000 people were evacuated and some 56,000 houses destroyed and 104,000 damaged, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing an unnamed official at the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

"We've got experience of floods, but I've never known a flood like this," Zhong Shizhan, a resident of Mei county in Guangdong province, was quoted as saying by the Southern Metropolis Daily.

The National Meteorological Centre forecast heavy rain south of the Yangtze, China's longest river, and continued downpours in the south of the country until Thursday. the rest