A mudslide in central China’s Hunan Province Saturday afternoon killed three people, leaving another 19 injured and five missing, according to local governnment.

The mudslide happened at about 4 p.m. in Zuta Village of Ningxiang County after heavy rain for a long time since Friday. Search and rescue were underway overnight.

China’s summer transport peak period began Saturday, with a record-high number of passenger trips expected to be made by train this year.

The period runs from July 1 to August 31, when students on summer vacation have time to travel or return home.

A total of 598 million passenger trips are expected to be made by train during the 62-day period, rising by 49.7 million year on year, according to China Railway Corporation.

Railway authorities have put a new transport route plan into operation, which adds more trains at transport hubs and elevates average passenger capacity.

Under the new route plan, Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta cities Shanghai and Hangzhou, as well as Xuzhou, will open high-speed trains to the northwestern city of Lanzhou, capital of Gansu Province during the summer peak period.

The Yangtze River Delta railway network is estimated to have 116 million passenger trips during the period, an increase of 9.2 percent from the same period last year.

Beijing will increase 32 pairs of trains to serve students and tourists during the travel peak, according to the Beijing Railway Bureau.

“Today is the first day of the summer transport period. We estimate the Beijing Railway Station will handle 210,000 outbound passenger trips on Saturday,” said Wang Fan, an official in charge of passenger transport at the station.

Passengers can take bullet trains for the first time from Beijing to Xiongan New Area in neighboring Hebei Province next week, according to the China Railway Corporation.

High-speed trains become a popular choice for tourists.

“My children have begun their summer holidays. We will make a visit to Nanjing,” said a woman surnamed Lu at the south railway station in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province. It was the first time for Lu to board a high-speed train.

In the southwestern Yunnan Province, high-speed trains are applied for this year’s summer transport for the first time. In December, Yunnan opened high-speed trains bound for the eastern metropolis Shanghai and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region respectively.

Passengers who take high-speed trains to Yunnan will increase a lot this summer, according to the Kunming Railway Station.

China is scheduled to launch the Long March-5 Y2, the country’s second heavy-lift carrier rocket, from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern China’s Hainan Province Sunday, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence said Saturday.

Propellant for the rocket, which will send the Shijian-18 communication satellite into orbit, began to be pumped in on Saturday afternoon, it said.

After arriving at the launch base in early May, the rocket has been assembled and tested there.

The launch will be the last drill for the Long March-5 series before it carries the Chang’e-5 lunar probe into space in the latter half of this year, according to the administration.

Media are allowed to live broadcast the launch, the administration said.

The Long March-5 made its maiden flight in November 2016 in Wenchang. It can carry a payload of 25 tonnes into low Earth orbit and 14 tonnes in geostationary orbit, over two times the capacity of current carrier rockets.

China has scheduled eight launches of Long March-5 in the coming years for the nation’s lunar probe, manned space station and Mars probe missions.

China is battling floods along the Yangtze River in the south while northern regions, including Beijing, endure a heat wave.

The first flood this year of the Yangtze River, the country’s longest, is forming as water levels are rapidly rising in major tributaries in the middle and lower reaches, said the Yangtze River Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters Saturday.

The headquarters ordered the Three Gorges Reservoir of the Yangtze to reduce the flow of discharging to 18,000 cubic meters per second from 2 p.m. Saturday to relieve the flood pressure downstream.

Other upstream reservoirs also joined the flood control efforts.

Floods have already hit the Xiangjiang, Yuanjiang and Zishui rivers in central China’s Hunan, the worst-hit province. The rain continues in Changsha, the provincial capital and other cities such as Xiangtan and Huaihua.

The level of the Xiangjiang River in Changsha stood at 38.6 meters at 4 p.m. Saturday, well above the warning level of 36 meters and only 57 cm lower than its highest record level, according to the Hunan Provincial Hydrological Bureau.

The level of the Zishui River in Taojiang County was only 38 cm lower than its record level in history, said the bureau.

At around 1 a.m. Saturday, a 20-meter stretch of the Taxi river, a small branch of the Zishui River, burst due to flood, according to a local official.

The Hunan flood control and drought relief headquarters raised the flood response from Grade III to Grade II on Saturday. The province has mobilized soldiers, officials and villagers, allocated funds and sent relief supplies to affected areas.

As of Saturday, the rain had caused an evacuation of 310,000 in Hunan.

“The water level is rising and my house is in danger of being submerged. I was relieved when I saw a rescue boat coming,” said Zhou Changsong, who was evacuated Saturday afternoon from Chenxi County, where eight towns were flooded by the Yuanjiang River. Around 100,000 people have been evacuated.

Downpours also hit Hubei, Guizhou and Jiangxi provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

In Jiangxi, which neighbors Hunan, seven people died and two were missing due to flood in the past ten days, showed statistics with the provincial flood control headquarters.

About 440,000 were evacuated in Jiangxi. On Saturday morning, a landslide buried two residential buildings in a village in Xiushui County, but caused no casualties as all 39 residents had been displaced on Thursday.

More than 70 passenger trains passing Jiangxi Province were suspended from Saturday to Monday due to floods, said the Nanchang Railway Bureau in Jiangxi.

The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters launched a Grade III emergency response plan Saturday and dispatched eight work teams to flood-stricken areas to guide relief work.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) forecast Saturday afternoon rainstorms will hit Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui from Saturday night to Sunday.

In north China, a heat wave affected Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, with temperatures reaching 35 to 37 degrees Celsius at 2 p.m. Saturday, said the center.

In Beijing, many residents chose to stay indoors over the weekend due to the hot weather.

The NMC forecast the heat wave will continue in the north until Tuesday. Some areas will see temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius in Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Shaanxi on Sunday.

China’s disaster relief authorities launched a level III emergency response plan Saturday to help flood victims.

The Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has dispatched eight work teams to south China’s flood stricken areas to guide relief work, the office said in a statement.

Severe floods hit the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River in recent days, as well as some nearby rivers and lakes.

More than 260,000 people have been displaced after heavy rain in central China’s Hunan Province since June 22, said the provincial flood control office late Friday.

Under a level III emergency response plan, the office must report to the State Council within two hours and dispatch a work team to the disaster zone within 24 hours.