About 31 people died, eight are missing and 171 injured in a rainstorm that hit East China's Shandong Province on Wednesday.

More than 5,718 houses were affected by floods and 135 destroyed in the cities of Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai and Zibo, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said.

It was the strongest storm to hit Shandong this year. Jinan, the provincial capital, bore the brut of it. The city received 180 mm of rain between 5 pm and 8 pm, the meteorological bureau said.

"Some people drowned or were swept away, others were struck by lightning or collapsing walls," Liu Hua, an official with the city's information office, said.

"Most casualties occurred in the downtown areas of the cities, where the drainage systems are not as good as those in the suburban areas," Liu said.

"Many major roads were under 2.5 m of water."

The rainstorm also brought down power lines, cutting off electricity for three hours in Jinan.

Unusual weather has continued to plague China since January. The north has experienced severe drought, while the eastern, southern and southwest regions floods.

According to the ministry, more than 200 million people have suffered from all kinds of natural disasters so far this year. The casualty toll - 715 dead, 129 missing and 4.44 million people relocated.

In addition, 26.2 million hectares of cropland have been destroyed, and many farms will produce no harvest this year.

The economic loss is estimated to be 73.6 billion yuan ($9.73 billion).

Since Monday rainstorms have hit seven cities in Sichuan, with parts of Guang'an receiving up to 270.8 mm of rain. By 8 am yesterday 5.18 million people in the cities had been affected. Seven were reported to have died.

In nearby Chongqing, which has received its heaviest rainfall since records began in 1892, more than 37 people have died and 6.13 million affected.

Yesterday the ministry, together with the Ministry of Finance allocated 40 million yuan to help the victims of Chongqing.

The Huaihe River, which runs through the central province of Henan and the eastern provinces of Anhui and Jiangsu, has been overflowing for the past 11 days, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. More heavy rain is forecast to hit the region.

In the far western region of Xinjiang, 11 people have died and more than 100 injured in rainstorms since Saturday.

(China Daily 07/20/2007 page3)