Another 72 people have died in floods in western and southwestern China as authorities warned that levees holding back the swollen Huaihe River in the heavily populated east are at risk of bursting.

The latest reported deaths from heavy rains that have spread misery across much of the country included dozens killed in recent days in the mountainous southwestern province of Yunnan, state-run Xinhua news agency said Sunday.

Torrential downpours in the region triggered mudslides, landslides and heavy flooding that also destroyed more than 4,000 homes and ravaged crops, it said.

The Yunnan death toll rose to 63 when four people were killed in a mining area of Tengchong county on Saturday when they were engulfed by a sudden landslide while trying to clear up mud debris loosed by earlier rains.

Another eight people were reported missing in the province.

Mud and rockslides also struck the 176-kilometre (109-mile) Tengchong-Myitkyina highway linking China and Burma in at least 10 sections, severing traffic.

And nine people have been confirmed killed by floods in far-western Xinjiang province, with two more missing, Xinhua said.

Weeks of torrential rains in several provinces have made this year's summer rainy season one of the deadliest in years.

Meanwhile, flood-control officials in eastern Anhui province have warned that water levels in the surging Huaihe River, China's third-longest, could remain dangerously high for at least another 10 days.

Dykes along the river have soaked in high water levels for three weeks, putting them at increased risk of breaching with more rain expected, Xinhua quoted officials as saying.

More than one million people have been evacuated in Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces along the river's course, Xinhua said.

This past week has been especially deadly, with at least 40 killed and nine missing in eastern Shandong province and 42 dead, 12 missing in the southwestern Chongqing region following record-smashing downpours in both areas.

China's death toll from natural disasters this year topped 700 by mid-July, with about half the fatalities coming this month, and at least 129 missing, Xinhua said on Friday.

Millions have been evacuated or seen their homes flooded or destroyed.

PHOTO CAPTION

A local resident paddles on home-made raft in the floods in Qianmiao village of Fengyang County, east China's Anhui province July 22, 2007. REUTERS