The Fu River in Jiangxi Province broke through another protective dyke on Wednesday. More residents were evacuated from their homes, as the region deals with its worst flooding in decades.

A week of heavy flooding has killed nearly 200 people and left 123 missing in the region.

The river first burst through the dyke on Monday.

[Wu Guoliang, Flood Victim]:
“At around past 1 a.m. last night, the water levels started to rise here, and it rose pretty quickly, almost 24 inches at one place.”

More than 2 million people have been evacuated as a result. Many moved only short distances, as they were unwilling to leave their homes.

[Xiong Feijie, Flood Victim]:
"At first we did not want to come out, but they said there would be heavy rains coming in the next few days, so we decided to bring the children out here.”

The floods have caused more than 6 billion dollars of economic losses, with over 6,000 square miles of farmland flooded and about 195,000 houses collapsing.

Meteorologists have warned that rains could keep pounding parts of the south until Saturday.

Worst hit were the provinces and regions of Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi.