Chinese residents armed with clubs, shovels and poison are attempting to kill some of the estimated 2 billion field mice and rats that are plaguing parts of the flood-ravaged country, Chinese news agencies reported Thursday.

A worker catches mice with his bare hands in the city of Yiyang on Saturday.
(EyePress/Associated Press)

The rodents have been driven from their holes by the overflowing waters of Dongting Lake, a large body of water in the southern Hunan province that is surrounded by 22 counties, said the state media network, Xinhua News Agency.

The agency said they are destroying countless hectares of land and are considered a risk for spreading disease.

China Central Television showed images of residents in the city of Yiyang beating the rodents with clubs and shovels. Others were catching mice and rats in fishing nets or laying down poison for them to eat.

Residents have killed about 2.3 million of the rodents, burying them in deep pits filled with lime in an attempt to prevent the spread of disease, Xinhua said.

The news agency said there have been no reports of disease yet, although about 1,000 cats have died in the village of Binhu after eating poisoned mice. Experts from the provincial Centre for Disease Control and Prevention are being sent to the area to monitor the situation.

While floods are affecting the Hunan province, they are also ravaging central China.

Floods wash away tens of thousands of homes

An extremely rainy June has caused the waters of the Huai River to overflow, destroying tens of thousands of homes and ravaging an estimated 10,000 hectares of farmland.

Residents carry bags through flood waters in the community of Fuyang, in China's Anhui province on Thursday.
(EyePress/Associated Press)

Nearly 500,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in the provinces of Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu.

Officials say the flooding, which is the worst the area has seen in about 50 years, has caused about $1 billion in economic damage so far.

Rescuers in boats have been working continuously to gather stranded residents, while landslides triggered by rain have killed more than 360 people.

The government has attempted to manage the flood by diverting the water away from urban areas and into farmlands and other rivers.

The Huai River flows through densely populated farmland between China's two major rivers — the Yellow and the Yangtze.

With files from the Associated Press