A new round of heavy rain has started to batter several southern regions, increasing the risk of further floods and landslides.

Torrential rain began to lash Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui provinces Monday evening and Zhejiang Province Tuesday morning. The rain is forecasted to last till Friday in some regions, according to local meteorological authorities.

Flooding and landslides triggered by an earlier two rounds of rainstorms have left 105 people dead and 63 more missing in the south over the past 10 days, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Monday.

The Wuhan Central Meteorological Observatory issued four rainstorm alerts from Monday night to Tuesday morning to get residents in Hubei to brace themselves for the torrential rain.

Twenty-four counties and cities in Hubei have received over 50 mm of rainfall over the past day and the precipitation in Gong'an and Yingcheng has reached nearly 100 mm, said Xu Shuangzhu, chief weather forecaster at the observatory.

In the already hard-hit Yueyang city in Hunan, the new round of rain further damaged the embankments of several reservoirs, and last week, flash floods and landslides caused by the largest rainstorm in 300 years killed 29 people and left 20 missing.

City authorities have ordered the repair of the damaged embankments, checks on all reservoirs for problems, and the evacuation of downstream residents who might be in danger.

In the city of Huangshan in southern Anhui, water overflowed from 35 reservoirs and exceeded the warning levels in 124 reservoirs, according to the city flood control and drought relief headquarters.

The agency has also ordered precautions and checks for potential geological disasters and the relocation of threatened residents.

(China.org.cn via Xinhua June 14, 2011)