After continuous rains created floods and set off landslides, hundreds of thousands of residents in many southern and eastern regions of China had to be evacuated.
As rivers overflowed and floodwater levels reached a 50-year high on Tuesday, two provinces raised flood warnings.
Videos on state media show people being rescued by ropes over raging rivers and automobiles being swept down streets.
According to meteorological experts, the region is seeing its heaviest rainfall since 1961.
People who live in low-lying neighbourhoods and near river banks have been asked to relocate to higher land.
One of the worst hit cities is Shaoguan in Guangdong province, which prompted officials to elevate the flood alert to the highest level after the city saw record rainfall since late May.
For the city of Qingyuan in Guangdong, a similar alarm was issued.
Rain has affected supply networks in the low-lying Pearl river valley, which surrounds Guangdong and Guangxi. Manufacturing and shipping were already struggling as a result of stringent anti-Covid regulations.
According to Xinhua News, officials in Jiangxi province in southeast China have issued a flood alert after 485,000 residents in nine districts were reportedly impacted.
According to Xinhua, 43,300 hectares of crops were damaged, resulting in economic losses estimated at 470 million yuan ($70.2 million, £57 million).
The Pearl River basin's water levels will continue to rise, local officials have warned, and the situation is expected to get worse over the next several days.
The average rainfall in the provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and Guangxi between early May and mid-June was 621 millimetres, the highest amount since 1961, according to China's National Meteorological Center.
Flooding is a common occurrence throughout the summer rainy season in southern China, but there are worries that the problem may be becoming worse due to climate change.
However, the rain is expected to arrive next in the north of the country, where several locations are already enjoying extremely high temperatures.