Rains in Guangdong to begin subsiding

Qin Xi, 50, a villager in Yingde city, under the administration of Qingyuan, said this year's flooding is the most serious he has ever seen.

"Most of the houses and farmland in my village have been flooded this year," he said, adding his family was also evacuated.

Statistics show that the water level of the Beijiang River, a major tributary of the Pearl River, in Yingde was the highest since 1951.

In Shaoguan's Zhenjiang district, a woman gave birth to a son after she was carried by four firefighters on a stretcher and walked more than one kilometer on flooded roads to an ambulance that took her to hospital on Tuesday.

Li Xi, Party secretary of Guangdong province, and Wang Weizhong, governor of Guangdong, have also led working groups to Shaoguan and Qingyuan respectively and asked relevant departments to put people's lives first.

Water resources departments across the province had sent more than 6,500 working teams as of Wednesday. "They have, so far, patrolled and inspected 15,000 large and medium-sized reservoirs and 57,000 sections of river dikes to help remove hidden dangers," said the statement from the province's water resources department.

Hou Liqiangin Beijing contributed to this story.