Flooding in southern China leaves 88 dead, thousands displaced

By the CNN Wire Staff

A member of the Chinese airforce holds on to a child during the airlifting of a group of villagers who were trapped after their village was hit by flooding in Jinxiu, southwest China's Guangxi region.

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Beijing, China (CNN) -- Heavy flooding has killed 88 people and displaced about 757,000, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

Landslides flattened thousands of houses in Jianxi province and hundreds of thousands have been forced to evacuate in neighboring areas as an ongoing persistent downpour continued to pound the already drenched soil, officials said.

China's Ministry of Civil Affairs was quoted by Xinhua as saying that more than nine million people in Fujian, Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces were affected by the heavy rains.

Economic losses caused by the heavy rains have topped 10 billion yuan (about US $1.46 billion), officials said.