Photo taken on July 1, 2020 shows the flooded residential area in Qijiang District of Chongqing Municipality, southwest China. In Chongqing Municipality's Qijiang District, rainfalls have caused an increasing amount of water to flow into the rivers in downtown areas, and some guardrails along the rivers were damaged by the rush of water. (Photo by Chen Xingyu/Xinhua)

Central China's Hubei Province has experienced six rounds of heavy rainfall since the rainy season started in June, affecting more than five million people and causing losses of over 5 billion yuan ($700 million). 

From June 8 to Friday, the whole province has seen a cumulative average areal precipitation of 363.9 millimeters, 45 percent higher than the level of recent years and the second highest since 1961. 

Some 80 counties, cities and districts in the province have been hit by heavy or severe downpours and 17 of them encountered three rounds of rainfall in a row.

Qianjiang launched a Level-I emergency response for flooding on Monday, the first city in the province to announce such a warning. 

The torrential rain has caused seven deaths in the province and one person is missing. 

A total of 5.35 million people have been affected, with 34,700 people relocated and resettled. 

More than 500,000 hectares have been damaged. 

China upgraded the emergency response level for heavy rainfall from Level-IV to level III on Sunday, with southern parts of China being the most-affected region. 

As of Monday, natural disasters amid the nationwide rainfall have caused 271 cases of deaths and missing persons and 19,000 houses have collapsed in the first half of 2020, leading to a total direct economic loss of 81.24 billion yuan ($11.5 billion), according to the Ministry of Emergency Management on Monday. 

Global Times