Floods kill 55 in southern China; 1.27 million across nine provinces forced to flee

For those of you that have been complaining about the wet weather in Shanghai here over the weekend, our friends in southern China have been having it far worse. Heavy rain in Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces are causing water levels in rivers further downstream in in Jiangxi, Guangxi and Guangdong provinces to rise. Of course all this is doubly bad news for Sichuan which is still reeling from last month's earthquake. Over 1.27 million people have been evacuated across nine provinces, and economic losses already amount to over 10 billion yuan. Xinhua says vegetable prices in a few cities in Guangdong shot up between 30 percent and 70 percent on Saturday alone. Hong Kong has also been swamped by record rainfall (see video), and at least two people are now missing in landslides in the New Territories.