BEIJING – China's death toll from Tropical Storm Bilis rose to 530 on Saturday, more than a week after the storm hit, as officials in southern Guangdong province and the Guangxi region reported an additional 48 deaths, state media said.
Guangdong's toll jumped to 106 after 43 additional deaths were reported from the storm, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
In the Guangxi region, five more deaths were reported, bringing the toll there to 35, it said.
Bilis slammed into China's southeastern coast on July 14, causing massive flooding and triggering mudslides that swept away thousands of homes and forced nearly 3 million to flee their hometowns.
Hardest hit was Hunan province, where 346 people have been confirmed dead and another 89 were missing, according to Xinhua. Elsewhere, 43 were killed in the coastal Fujian province.
Flood waters washed away roads, cut power supplies and submerged part of China's main north-south railway line in a swath of destruction that stretched across the south.
Storm-ravaged areas faced new problems this week as a heat wave baked the region, with temperatures rising as high as 38 C (100 F) Thursday in Fujian.
Typhoons hit China every summer, causing hundreds of deaths. The country expects more storms than usual this year due to an unusually warm current off its Pacific coast and high temperatures on the Tibetan plateau.
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