Persistent heavy rains and the resulting floods, which struck 11 south China provinces from June 13 to 29, caused significantly greater economic and human losses compared to floods in the same period over the past five years, the National Commission for Disaster Reduction said Friday.

Local residents take a boat in flood water at Shali Village of Yao ethnic group in Lingyun County, southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, July 2, 2010. Torrential rainstorms ravaged Shali Village from June 27 to June 30, causing serious flood which cut off electricity, traffics and clean water supplies there. A total of 3700 mu (about 244.87 hectares) farmland had been destroyed by the flood. [Zhou Hua/Xinhua]

Compared to the previous five years, economic losses more than quadrupled, the number of people killed, missing and relocated more than doubled, and more than seven times the number of houses collapsed in this year's June flood season in south China.

As of 4 p.m. Thursday, persistent rainstorms in the 11 provinces - Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan - had affected more than 44 million residents, leaving 266 people dead and another 199 missing.

Rain-triggered landslides and mud-rock flows were responsible for nearly 80 percent of the total people killed or missing. Among the remaining, 106 people were drowned or hit by lightning, while collapsed houses were also responsible for some deaths.

More than 3.8 million people were evacuated and relocated due to floodwater, which destroyed 312,000 homes and resulted in direct economic losses reaching 64.57 billion yuan (about 9.49 billion U.S. dollars).