Wen visited villages around hard-hit Zixing city in Hunan province, urging local officials to help those left destitute by Bilis which has killed at least 530 people and left over 130 missing since striking China over a week ago.

"You have been hit by a once-in-a-century disaster and suffered a lot," Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as telling farmers.

"The disasters can damage our homes, claim the lives of many of our people, but they can never break our will power."

Qin Dahe, director of the China Meteorological Administration, said 1,345 people have died and 306 were missing from weather-related incidents in China from May to July 21.

The storms have caused 75.4 billion yuan (9.4 billion dollars) in direct economic losses, he said, ordering better preparations and improved weather reporting during the ongoing rainy season.

"Since we entered the rainy season, weather-related disasters have been serious, have had a big impact over a wide area and have left us in a serious situation," Qin said in the speech posted on the administration's website.

"The number of fatalities, missing people and direct economic losses are much greater than the same period last year."

Although Qin did not mention global warming as the cause of unusual weather patterns, reports by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have long held that rising temperatures would result in more severe rain storms in south and central China and drought in the north.

"Since May this year, the weather situation over the nation has been complicated with torrential rains, high winds, hail storms and other weather incidents occuring regularly over southern China," Qin said.

"The first typhoon this year, Chanchu, landed in Guangdong on May 18, nearly 40 days ahead of the beginning of the normal typhoon season.

"Chanchu was the earliest typhoon to hit Guangdong since 1949 and it is also one of the strongest to hit our country during the month of May."

Meanwhile relief operations continued in the mountainous areas of central Hunan province where flash floods and landslides buried villages and roads after Bilis dumped torrents of rain on the region over the last week.

Local officials in the Zixing city region told AFP that Bilis was the biggest storm to hit the area in 500 years, dumping over 610 millimeters (24 inches) of rain on up to 10 surrounding villages.

"We have not seen anything like this in this region in 500 years, the volume of rain was huge and it triggered landslides in a lot of areas," a spokesman at the Zixing city media relations office told AFP by phone.

"A lot of trees in the mountainous areas were washed down, including some trees that were several hundred years old."

He denied claims that local governments were trying to cover up the fatalities due to lax preparations and reports that illegal tree-felling in the region had resulted in landslides.

"As the local communications were cut off, we had no contact with these towns and villages," he said.

"Government departments at all levels have been focusing on rescue operations and have been dispatched to the worst hit areas to help the victims. We have to get people to shelters."

At least 346 people were reported dead and 89 missing from the rains in Hunan province, including 197 fatalities and 66 missing in the Zixing area, the government reported late Friday night.

Tropical Storm Bilis, which also claimed lives in the Philippines and Taiwan, has left a path of death and destruction since making landfall in China.

In the southern province of Guangdong, neighboring Hunan, 106 people were confirmed dead and 77 were missing from Bilis, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a provincial government report issued late Saturday.

At least 35 people were reported dead in the southern region of Guangxi, while 43 were killed in southeastern Fujian province.

In an ominous sign, Taiwanese authorities have issued an alert over Typhoon Kaemi, which is on course to hit the island on Monday.

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