Thirteen people were killed and one was missing after continuous rainstorms ravaged Yibin City in southwest China's Sichuan Province, local government said on Sunday.

Torrential rains hit the city in southern Sichuan from Wednesday to Saturday, bringing precipitations of up to 268 millimeters and triggering landslides and floods, the provincial disaster relief office said.

The 13 deaths included five who were killed after a landslide hit a residential community in Xinshi Town late Saturday.

Landslides and rock-mud flows triggered by the rainstorms have damaged or toppled nearly 4,000 houses and caused an evacuation of 2,309 people.

Around 170,000 people were affected.

Yibin city suffered a direct economic loss of 25 million yuan (US$3.3 million) from the rainstorms, 7.67 million yuan in the agricultural sector.

Officials from the provincial-level water, land and resources, and civil affairs departments have rushed to the affected areas for relief work.

Natural disasters, including floods, landslides and lightning, left 1,279 dead and 239 missing in China in the first seven months this year, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

In the latest toll, 39 people have died and nine others are missing following the trail of destruction left by Typhoon Sepat in Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Hunan provinces, the ministry said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2007)