Death toll from tropical storm Bilis rose Monday to at least 164, with 138 people missing, as torrential rains swept away houses and set off mudslides, state television reported.

Chinese soldiers rescue people in flood in Shaoguan, South China's Guangdong Province, July 16, 2006. [Fang Qianhua/Southern Daily]

More heavy rains were forecast in Guangdong province, a major economic center that borders Hong Kong, after Bilis flooded farmland, washed out roads and railway lines and cut power supplies, television and newspaper reports said.

Hardest-hit was the inland province of Hunan, where at least 78 people were killed after Bilis roared ashore Friday, according to newspapers and the Xinhua News Agency. They said 43 people were killed in coastal Fujian province and 33 in Guangdong.

State television said Jiangxi, Guangxi and Zhejiang provinces also suffered fatalities, but didn't give details.

Bilis weakened as it moved inland during the weekend, but the death toll climbed steadily as police and soldiers waded through flooded streets and used boats to reach thousands of people stranded by high water.

In Fujian, a landslide killed 10 people and a second left another 10 missing and feared dead in the city of Zhangzhou, the China Daily newspaper said, citing state television. The newspaper and other media haven't given details of how other deaths occurred.

A local resident falls off from his bicycle on a flooded street after a rainstorm hit Fuzhou, east China's Fujian province, July 16, 2006. Torrential rainstorms and flooding unleashed by Typhoon Bilis killed at least 154 people across southeast China, according to latest Xinhua and local news reports.  [Reuters]

The government evacuated more than 250,000 fishermen and others from coastal areas before the storm hit, and thousands more were forced to flee their homes as waters rose.

In Lechang, a city in Guangdong, authorities evacuated 1,663 inmates from a prison as waters rose to 3 meters (10 feet) high in some areas, earlier reports said.

Part of China's main north-south railway line was reportedly submerged, delaying thousands of travelers. State media said a 10,000-member repair crew was dispatched to fix the damage.

A front-page photo in the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper showed train cars submerged nearly to their windows at the Lechang train station.

A man watch his land submerged in floods caused by Typhoon Bilis in Ping He county, east China's Fujian province July 16, 2006. Rainstorms and winds unleashed by Bilis whip Fujian province Sunday, leaving 43 dead and 24 others missing. The directe ecnomic losses hit 3 billion yuan (US$375 million). A total of 154 are killed around south east China, according to state press. [Newsphoto]

Also in Lechang, residents standing knee-deep in flooded downtown streets used nets to catch fish that were swept in from a nearby river.

Earlier reports said 349 people had been hurt in Hunan and 12,000 stranded, while 31,400 houses had collapsed and 36,630 hectares (91,200 acres) of crops had been ruined.

Losses in the neighboring coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian were estimated at 1.1 billion yuan (US$140 million; euro110 million), Xinhua said.

It didn't give figures for Hunan or Guangdong, a center for China's export-driven manufacturing industries.

Typhoons hit China every year in the summer, causing hundreds of deaths.

The country expects to suffer from more storms than usual this year due to an unusually warm current off its Pacific coast and high temperatures on the Tibetan plateau.