Four people are dead and 10 missing in central China's Hubei Province following landslides and floods triggered by continuous rainstorms, the local civil affairs department said on Wednesday.

In Badong County of Enshi Prefecture, one person was killed and seven others are missing. The eight victims are all farmers from Qingtaiping Town.

More than 100 rescuers were searching the area for the missing bodies and 945 people in the town had been relocated.

The other victims were all from the western part of the province.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs has sent 1,000 tents to the disaster-hit province.

Floods have claimed 38 lives in central and southwest China, a spokesman with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) said late Wednesday. Another 15 people were missing as of 5 PM Wednesday.

More than 17,000 homes were destroyed and crops on 496,100 hectares of farmland were affected. Agricultural losses stood at 1 billion yuan (about US$130 million) while total losses stood at 1.45 billion yuan (about US$190 million).

(Xinhua News Agency June 21, 2007)