BEIJING, Oct 5: Heavy rain has forced thousands more people to evacuate their homes in flood-hit areas along China’s Yellow River, officials and state media said on Sunday.

This year’s fifth flood crest on the Weihe, a major tributary of the Yellow river in northwestern China’s Shaanxi province, passed one of the worst-hit areas on Sunday without causing any major damage, local officials said.

The rain also stopped on Sunday after five days, but the water level in the Weihe remained above the danger mark on Sunday evening, an official in Shaanxi’s Huaxian county said by telephone.

Flood control officials in Huaxian have now evacuated some 133,000 people since late August, he said, in the worst flooding for 20 years along the river.

In nearby Huayin city, 104,500 people have been evacuated from 15 submerged villages since late August, a city official said. But there were no new evacuations before the latest flood crest, he said.—dpa