Four days of heavy rains have battered Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hunan, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces, affecting nearly nine million people, Xinhua news agency reported, citing figures released by the civil affairs ministry.

The floods and landslides have caused overall economic losses of more than 2.9 billion yuan (380 million dollars), the ministry said, according to Xinhua.

The report did not give a breakdown of the death toll by province.

Some 48,000 houses have been completely destroyed and nearly 100,000 others damaged, Xinhua quoted an unnamed ministry official as saying.

Nearly 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of crops have been affected, with one-sixth of them completely destroyed, the report said.

The ministry has dispatched rescue teams to assist in relief efforts, it added.

China suffers deaths and damage every summer when seasonal rains cause flash floods.

Big cities are sheltered by giant dikes but fatalities are reported in farm communities that lack protection from rising rivers, and in mountain towns that are hit by flash floods.

Millions of people in central and southern China live on flood-prone reclaimed farmland in the flood plains of rivers.

Flooding and typhoons killed 2,704 people last year, according to the China Meteorological Administration. That was the second-deadliest year on record after 1998, when summer flooding claimed 4,150 lives.