A heavy storm has battered parts of southwest China's Guizhou province over the last two days, killing one person, leaving two missing and affecting 200,000 others, the local government said Thursday. The storm, which lasted from 8 a.m. Wednesday to 8 a.m. Thursday, swept across 15 counties and cities, causing floods and landslides, Xinhua quoted the provincial meteorological station as saying. The provincial civil affairs department estimated that the storm caused direct economic losses of 69.86 million yuan (10.9 million U.S. dollars). Disaster relief work is under way. The provincial meteorological station said another round of heavy rains will likely hit the province from Friday to next Tuesday. The government of northwest China's Shaanxi Province said Wednesday that a rainstorm that has lashed the province since the beginning of this month has left two people dead, three missing and affected 873,400 others.
