HEAVY rains and landslides over the past week have killed at least 45 people in southern China and left 21 others missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs revealed today.

Southern China is braced for the arrival of Typhoon Rammasun at about noon tomorrow, with gusts expected to surpass 90mph.

The typhoon has left at least 40 dead in the Philippines where it uprooted trees and brought down power lines on Wednesday.

Eleven people died and 19 were injured in Sichuan province when a landslide swept onto a lorry and four cars on a main road yesterday afternoon.

The ministry said that the bulk of deaths and missing people in recent days had been in Guizhou and Hunan provinces.

Nearly 9,300 houses collapsed in the rains and a further 63,000 were damaged.

The storms also affected 384,000 hectares of crops and caused direct economic losses of 5.2 billion yuan (nearly £500m).