More heavy rain tipped in northern areas

Autumn rain is expected to hit northern parts of China this week while the "autumn tiger", a spell of hot weather after summer, will continue in areas south of the Yangtze River.

Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces will see heavy rain. East China provinces have seen temperatures of up to 33.6 C and are expected to get even hotter early next month, the National Meteorological Center said.

On Sunday, Luoyang, Zhengzhou and Kaifeng in Henan province were hit by heavy rain, the local meteorological service said.

The service issued an orange alert for heavy rain, the second-highest in a four-tier system. The service suggested that companies and schools close in areas that could see dangerous conditions.

Henan's flood control and drought relief headquarters triggered a level-four emergency response, the lowest in the system.

A video taken in Xin'an county, Luoyang, on Sunday showed part of a road and a row of trees planted beside it collapsing due to continuous rainfall.

By noon Sunday, about 88,050 people in Ankang, Shaanxi province, had been affected by the rain. The city government evacuated about 19,400 residents, and 10 counties or districts of the city suffered from urban flooding, China Central Television reported.

The rain inundated more than 1,200 hectares of farmland, ruined about 50 houses, damaged hundreds of highway sections, killed hundreds of large domestic animals and cut electricity supplies in some parts of the city, according to the CCTV report.

At 3 am on Sunday, firefighters rescued five people trapped in a hotel surrounded by mudslides from nearby mountains in Ankang's Zhenping county.

The county issued the highest-level emergency response and suspended bus services to other cities.

Shaanxi's Provincial Water Resources Department ordered reservoirs to be discharged to make room for floodwater. Since the beginning of this month, southern and western parts of Shaanxi have seen double or triple the amount of rain usually seen at this time of the year, the local meteorological service said.

Over the weekend, six counties in Chongqing were hit by heavy rain, causing water levels in rivers to rise.

In the municipality's Wuxi county, goods in more than 260 shops in an old urban neighborhood were ruined.

By noon Sunday, the county's emergency management bureau rescue team had battled floodwater for seven hours to save people and property.

The National Meteorological Center has warned of the risk of geological disasters caused by the accumulated impact of rainfall, including mudslides, debris flows and floods.