Firefighters rescue stranded vehicles in Tongren, Guizhou province on Wednesday. Liu Yonggang / for China Daily

In Tongren, the worst-hit city, 928,000 people were affected by the storms as 1,886 houses collapsed and direct economic losses totaled nearly 400 million yuan.

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The downpours also stranded many passengers at railway stations in Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, with many trains delayed or suspended on Wednesday.

A passenger surnamed Liu who took the train from Chengdu, in Sichuan province, to Guiyang, Guizhou province, departing on Tuesday afternoon, was told that the train would be delayed more than 6 hours because of the storm.

"There is no cooked food provided on the train, and we don't know how long we will wait here, which is irritating," Liu said.

At the railway station in Kunming, one of Yunnan province's busiest, 14 trains were delayed or suspended on Wednesday, and the station suggested that passengers buy tickets for later trains.

While the country's southwestern provinces were hit by heavy rainfalls, Typhoon Rammasun was expected to make landfall in Hainan or Guangdong on Friday morning, worsening the situation in the region.

Guo Anfei in Kunming, Yunnan province; Lyu Chunrong in Changsha, Hubei province; and Liu Xiaoli in Haikou, Hainan province, contributed to this story.