Thousands flee China floods

Further torrential rains are predicted

Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated from land along the Huai River in eastern China in an attempt to escape rising floodwaters.

Officials in the province of Jiangsu said residents around Hongze Lake will be evacuated by Sunday evening, allowing officials to divert the flood waters to specially-designated areas.

Thousands of troops and hundreds of thousands of local people are helping with the evacuation and flood prevention efforts.

Waters have risen to their highest levels in more than 10 years in some areas, destroying more than half-a-million homes. An estimated 600 people have been killed.

A swathe of southern and central China is affected, but particular concern is focused on the Huai River, China's third longest, which flows through central Henan and Anhui provinces and eastern Jiangsu province.

China Central Television on Saturday showed hundreds of volunteers, some knee-deep in water, piling up sandbags along Hongze Lake.

In some areas, the authorities have been destroying dykes to lower river levels, flooding huge tracts of farmland in order to protect cities elsewhere.

The BBC's Francis Markus in Shanghai says that for those whose land has been sacrificed, it must feel as though the forces of man and nature are ganging up against them.

Chinese President Hu Jintao has ordered increased efforts nationwide to fight the flooding.

Our correspondent says China's leaders are keen to project an efficient and caring image, building on some of the credit for their response to the flu-like Sars virus, which after an initial cover-up became more open.

The civil affairs ministry on Friday said this year's flood disaster had been worse than last year in terms of areas affected, fatalities and losses.

"So far it has not reached the level of the big disaster of 1991 or the big disaster of 1998," it said in a statement, referring to flooding which claimed more than 5,000 and 4,000 lives respectively.

China's flooding season usually beings in June and ends in September.

The central meteorological bureau has predicted that torrential rains will continue at least until Monday.