The clash of cold and warm fronts means that areas south of the Yangtze River will receive constant rainfall some of it locally heavy until Monday, the China Meteorological Administration said on Friday.

The worst rain will be in the provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, Hunan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Yunnan, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, it said.

No deaths or injuries have been reported so far.

In the Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, mountain flooding derailed 14 carriages of a goods train carrying food and coal on Friday morning, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

More than 300 soldiers rushed to the site to help, it said.

In Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces, two days of torrential rain triggered landslides and caused one cave-in, China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Friday.

For the most part, though, the rain proved little more than an inconvenience.

"It will take me more than 1 hour to get through this 2-kilometre or so section of road, which has been flooded heavily," said a resident in Guangzhou, Guangdong's capital.

In Suichuan County, of East China's Jiangxi Province, a landslide on Thursday blocked a provincial road, CCTV said, adding that it would take a week to clear the debris.

"Suichuan is one of the major regions in the province prone to geological disasters," said a meteorologist with the Jiangxi provincial meteorological station.

A total of about 30-50 millimetres of rain is expected to fall in southern parts of the province over the next two days, she added.

Reports of damage were just starting to arrive at the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Beijing

"It is a little early to predict possible disasters triggered by the upcoming rainfall," said Li Baojun, a ministry disaster relief official.

(China Daily 05/27/2006 page2)