Powerful storms have now claimed at least 21 lives in southern China.

The figures for the latest storms, which have been lashing southern provinces for the past five days, confirm at least 21 people have now been killed, while two others are missing.

Fujian and Guangdong provinces and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have borne the brunt of the most recent storms.

"More than 2.53 million people have suffered because of flooding and landslides caused by the rain so far," said Zhao Jie, an official in charge of disaster relief with the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in a phone interview.

The devastating series of storms begun at the end of May, when heavy rain swept across seven provinces and municipalities in southern China.

Since then storms have caused countless floods and landslides and hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated.

A joint rescue team led by Vice-Minister of Civil Affairs Jiang Li left Beijing for the battered areas yesterday morning.

Zhao said governments of all levels in the provinces have already allocated 31 million yuan (US$3.9 million) to help people affected by the storms.

In East China's Fujian Province the hardest hit area the provincial civil affairs bureau has allotted 240 tons of rice, 5,000 tents, 8,000 quilts and 24,000 items of clothing for the needy.

Train services have been hit by the continuous rain.

Following track bed on the Yingtan-Xiamen Railway collapsing on Wednesday, services between Beijing and Kowloon were disrupted by a landslide yesterday.

A 30-metre-long section of wall beside the line, in Jiangxi Province of East China, collapsed allowing about 5,000 cubic metres of soil to slide onto the tracks, said Zheng Bo, an official with the Nanchang railway authorities in Jiangxi Province.

After two hours recovery work engineers were able to reopen one of the two tracks yesterday afternoon.

A silver lining has at last appeared with weather forecasters now predicting the storms will begin gradually moving out of southern China.

Editor: Yan