BEIJING, June 20 The death toll from torrential downpours battering China for the past week has risen to 147, the government said on Sunday, as more heavy rain was forecast.

Floods and landslides triggered by the summer deluge have left a further 93 people missing, while more than a million have been evacuated, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on its website.

Earlier state media reports said more than 1.4 million people living on river banks and in low-lying areas had been forced to flee their homes.

More heavy rain was expected as the cost of the disaster, which has hit great swathes of China's south and southeast, reached 19.7 billion yuan ($2.9 billion), the ministry said.

Authorities have raised the level of their emergency response as rescue and flood-prevention work continues.

State television broadcast images of submerged crops in the eastern province of Jiangxi, while other images showed soldiers leading clean-up efforts in parts of Fujian province.

A total of 178,000 homes have been damaged in the deluge and 68,000 houses have collapsed, the government said.—AFP