Six people have died from floods in China’s Guizhou province, state media said, after more than 80,000 people were driven from their homes this week.

Towns and villages by a key river in China’s Guangxi lay half-submerged as floodwaters from a province upstream roared into the mountainous region, with the expected landfall of a tropical cyclone later on Thursday compounding disaster risk.

The flooding that overwhelmed the counties of Rongjiang and Congjiang in Guizhou province on Tuesday has spread downstream to other parts of southwest China, including rural settlements in Guangxi by the Liu River, which originates from Guizhou.

On Thursday, state broadcaster CCTV said “exceptionally large floods” had swept through Guizhou’s Rongjiang county since Tuesday.

China is enduring a summer of extreme weather.

This week, authorities issued the second-highest heat warning for the capital, Beijing, on one of its hottest days of the year so far.

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated last week in Hunan province – neighbouring Guizhou – due to heavy rain.