Parts of China braced for more flooding and landslides yesterday with heavy rain forecast over a wide area, state media said. Floods have killed more than 280 people so far this year and forced more than 412,000 to flee their homes, the official China Daily said.

?Heavy rains or thunderstorms are forecast to sweep over most parts of China on Monday, raising new alarms for possible flooding, mud-rock flows and landslides,? the newspaper said. In the southwestern province of Yunnan, floods left five people dead and 11 missing, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Meteorologists predicted the rain would move north, bringing heavy showers to normally arid areas, while China?s south was expected to remain dry over the next 10 days. Last Friday, a tropical storm made a direct hit on Hong Kong, bringing torrential rain and strong winds and shutting down one of Asia?s top financial centres. Earlier last week, a freak storm hit Shanghai, killing 11 people. Floods are threatening wide tracts of the remote Tibetan plateau after rainfall in some areas hit record highs. Tibet?s rainy season started early and a flash flood washed away two teenagers last week. Floods and droughts caused losses totalling 200 billion yuan (US$ 24 billion) last year, the China Daily said.