Beset by months of typhoons, flooding and droughts, China is facing its worst series of natural disasters in six years, leaving 2,006 people dead and causing 160 billion yuan (US$20 billion) in economic losses, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said yesterday.

The ruthless weather so far this year also left 624 people missing, caused the evacuation of nearly 13 million residents and damaged 36 million hectares of farmland.

More than 1.5 million houses collapsed and another 4.1 million were damaged in the disasters, according to the figures released by the ministry's National Center for Disaster Reduction .

"All the figures, including death tolls and economic losses, were above average levels since 2001," said Wang Zhenyao, the center's director.

Compared with past years, the natural disasters this year occurred earlier and were stronger in scale and longer in duration.

"The movements of typhoons were hard to predict," Wang said.

Heavy rainfall to the south of the Yangtze River came nearly a month earlier than in previous years. During the 44 days prior to August 9, a new typhoon slammed into China every nine days on average.

Since May, east China's Fujian Province has suffered seven rounds of large-scale flooding and typhoons. The provinces and regions of Hunan, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Guangxi have been hit at least three times.

The death toll from Typhoon Saomai, the eighth of the year and the strongest in the last 50 years, rose to 325 yesterday.

While floods swamped the south, northern and western regions were ravaged by drought.

Many areas are suffering from the most severe droughts in 50 years, leaving at least 18 million people and thousands of livestock short of drinking water. Economic losses have reached 11.74 billion yuan.

Searing heat and lack of rain have choked Chongqing Municipality and eastern Sichuan Province since the beginning of summer, destroying about 2.7 million hectares of crops.

Severe drought has also affected Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces and regions.

The underdeveloped areas are suffering the most, said Wang, who called for greater efforts in disaster relief and reconstruction in those areas.

The worst-hit area is Chongqing, which has had no rain for more than 70 consecutive days, local drought-relief authorities said yesterday, adding that one person died of heatstroke.

Some two-thirds of the city's rivers have dried up.

The mercury has hovered above 35 degrees Celsius over the past month in Chongqing, and the thermometer hit a record 42 degrees in the past week.