BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- This year's series of natural disasters have so far killed 1,699 people in China and left another 415 missing, the Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) revealed on Thursday.

A total of 300 million people have been affected by a slew of natural disasters this year, with losses totaling more than 130 billion yuan (16.25 billion U.S. dollars), said Jiang Yiman, deputy director of RCSC.

"About 5 million houses and more than 32 million hectares of farmland have been destroyed," Jiang said, adding that the statistics had been verified by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

China's southern areas have been reeling under the effect of typhoon-driven heavy rains in the past month.

Bilis, Kaemi and Prapiroon, respectively the fourth, fifth and sixth storms of the year, have provoked floods, mud flows and landslides, resulting in huge losses in Hunan, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces and in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

More typhoons are on the way.

RCSC appealed to the public on July 21 for aid, and has so far received donations worth 19.8 million yuan (2.5 million U.S. dollars), including 2.4 million yuan from Hong Kong Red Cross and 1.1 million yuan from Macao Red Cross.

Red Cross societies all over China have offered a total of 120 million yuan (15 million U.S. dollars) to domestic regions hit by natural disasters this year.

RCSC has sent 12 teams to monitor local disaster relief work. "Team members say that, in many areas, the storms are the worst inthe last one hundred years," Jiang said. Enditem