BEIJING: Three people were missing and more than 50,000 evacuated from a city on Saturday after flooding along the Yalu river, which forms the border with North Korea, officials and state media said.

About 230 homes have collapsed in the city of Dandong and some transport, power and communication links have been cut off but no casualties have been reported, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the local government.

An official at Dandong`s flood control headquarters refused to confirm the number of people evacuated when contacted by AFP, but insisted the situation was "not serious" in the city of 2.4 million.

Xinhua however said that some roads were submerged along the river, and houses in Dandong were flooded with water that was already knee-deep, after heavy rains which began early Friday swelled the water level in the Yalu.

Workers were racing to build a sand-bag flood barrier along the river, the agency reported, with more rain in forecast throughout Saturday.

Heavy summer rains across large parts of China have triggered the country`s worst floods in a decade.

Nearly 3,900 people have been killed or are missing since the start of the the year in flood-related incidents, including about 1,750 victims of devastating mudslides in a remote northwestern town, official figures show.

Earlier this month, authorities suspended shipping and tourist traffic on the Yalu amid fears of flooding, as the waterway had seen more rain in a two-week period than at any comparable time in recorded history.

Thousands were evacuated at the time.

Across the border in North Korea, widespread flooding this summer has washed away homes, roads, railways and farmland, and caused an unspecified number of fatalities, according to state media reports from Pyongyang.

In 2007, the impoverished nation reported at least 600 people dead or missing from devastating floods.

Elsewhere in China, rescuers were still searching for about 80 people who went missing in rain-triggered mudslides in a remote part of the southwestern province of Yunnan. Twelve people have been confirmed dead, Xinhua said.

"The rescuers are at risk of sinking into the mud any time," the agency quoted military officer Yang Pingang as saying in Puladi township, where more rain was also expected.

"The task is dangerous," said rescuer Cao Dashuai.

BDST: 0935 HRS, August 21, 2010