Heavy rains are likely to pound flood-hit Guangxi while provinces in the south and east will be in the grip of sweltering heat in the coming days, the national weather office said yesterday.

"Following the rains, scorching heat may grip many areas in South China," said Yang Guiming, an official with the National Meteorological Centre.

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the death toll from this year's floods has risen to 607 with 164 unaccounted for.

About 2.86 million people were evacuated because of the deadly floods, which caused losses of 27.2 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion).

While the Ministry of Health has not received any reports of contagious diseases in the wake of the floods, authorities are on alert ready to deal with emergencies.

In South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the provincial flood control office late last week warned that torrential rain is expected to last until today.

In Guilin, the most popular tourist destination in Guangxi, the municipal flood control office is braced for any emergency triggered by bad weather.

"We have plans to deal with emergencies," a top official with the municipal flood control office said.

In South China's Guangdong Province, the government sounded the all-clear on floods after water levels in the Pearl River and its major tributaries receded to normal levels yesterday morning.

In addition to helping the flood-hit areas return to normal, the provincial government has shifted its focus to epidemic prevention.

The Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Health has sent 579 medical groups, consisting of about 6,000 experts, doctors and officials, to the cities of Zhaoqing, Heyuan, Yunfu, Shaoguan and Huizhou, which were hardest hit by the floods.

"Although no epidemic outbreaks have been reported in flood-hit areas, we will not relax our vigilance,?an official told China Daily.

Even as the water level fell, the mercury climbed to as high as 34.2 C in the provincial capital Guangzhou yesterday, about 6 C higher than on Sunday.

"The hot weather creates ideal conditions for the spreading of many infectious diseases,?said the official who did not want to be named.

The Guangdong Provincial Observatory warned that Guangdong has entered its hot summer season, and the temperature is expected rise to above 36 C in one or two days.

Meanwhile, East China's Jiangsu Province is suffering from a drought that is drying up reservoirs.

Rainfall this summer has been one tenth the yearly average, and many local governments have resorted to firing cloud-seeding rockets to induce rain.

The highest temperature recorded in Nanjing yesterday was 33 C, a few degrees lower than over the previous two days.