Floods swamped cities in southern China's densely populated Pearl River Delta following record-breaking rains

The province once dubbed the "factory floor of the world" is prone to summer floods.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated.

Since April 18, Guangdong has been battered by unusually heavy, sustained and widespread rainfall, with powerful storms ushering in an earlier-than-normal start to the province's annual flooding season in May and June.

In Qingyuan, a relatively small city of 4 million, residents counted their losses.

"My rice fields are fully flooded, my fields are gone," Huang Jingrong, 61, told Reuters.

Over the weekend, waterways in Guangdong overflowed including the river near Huang's village, where flood waters have reached the second storey of houses after washing out paddy and potato fields.

In other parts of Qingyuan, rescuers tackled neck-high waters to extract residents including an elderly lady trapped in waist-deep water in an apartment building.