At least 57 people were killed and more than a million were evacuated as massive floods hit China threatening to send the country into a new crisis after the powerful earthquake and its aftershocks devastated the Sichuan province and several other areas, Chinese state-media reported Monday according to BBC.

According to the meteorological forecast, the Chinese should expect torrential rains over the next 10 days. The rain will most likely raise the water levels further threatening to flood other areas.

Authorities were left with only the option of evacuating around 1.3 million people from areas hit by the flooding, including the earthquake-ravaged Sichuan province. However, the region which suffered the most damage from the rising waters was Guangdong. At least 20 people died there and approximately 5.8 million people in 17 cities were affected by the flood, according to Xinhua news agency.

The streets and houses near the Xijiang River in Guangdong are currently under water in what is the worst flooding that hit the Pearl River Delta region in the past 50 years, The Associated Press reported.

If the rain continues as meteorologists predicted, a major flood is feared, said Huang Boqing, deputy director of the Guangdong flood control and drought relief headquarters, according to the China Daily newspaper.

Nearly 18 million Chinese were affected by the flooding which caused economic losses of $1.5 billion, authorities estimated. The flood has destroyed 45,000 houses, damaged 140,000 more and ruined crops on 920,000 acres.