Residents line up for drinking water in Tonghua, Jilin province August 2. [Photo/Xinhua]

"The flood is unprecedented. Its devastation is appalling," said Sun Jingyuan, a top official of Antu county, the Korean autonomous prefecture of Yanbian, southeast Jilin.

Floods have ravaged large parts of China since July, claiming 991 lives and leaving 558 missing as of Friday, according to figures released by the central government.

In the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in Western China, recent downpours, coupled with melted snow, pushed water levels over the warning line in the region's 13 key rivers.

After a one-day delay due to adverse weather, helicopters delivered relief materials on Sunday to the hardest-hit mountainous areas in Aksu prefecture and rescued 118 of the 1,000 people trapped there.

Torrential rain previously hit large swathes of Central and Southern China, swelling the Yangtze River - the country's longest waterway - and some of its tributaries.

Peaking floodwaters bypassed the Three Gorges Dam and the city of Wuhan in Central China's Hubei province, where water levels have begun to drop as the weather improves.

However, rain is forecast to continue to hit Northeast China from Wednesday to Thursday, while no let-up is expected in Jilin province until Friday, the National Meteorological Center said on Sunday.

China Daily - Xinhua