The deaths have been concentrated in the poor southern province of Guizhou, where tens of thousands have left their homes to escape the rising waters over the past few days, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Another 3 2 people were missing, the report added, suggesting the death toll could rise.
Almost 8,000 houses have been destroyed by the floods and thousands of hectares of farmland inundated, it said.
The other deaths have been reported in the eastern seaboard province of Jiangsu, Xinhua added, though other parts of that province remain parched. Guizhou will be hit by more rain over the coming few days, and the government has already sent a relief team to the hardest hit areas, it said.
The drought has damaged crops and exacerbated a power shortage by cutting power generation from dams, adding a slight bump to near three-year high consumer inflation.
The rains will add to farmers’ hopes that they will be able to plant mid-year rice crops after early-season plantings suffered during the drought.
The drought has affected millions of hectares of farmland, mainly in the five provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze.
Rice acreage in these five provinces accounts for nearly half of China’s total rice area, official data show. But early-season rice accounted for only 16 percent of China’s total rice output of 196 million tons last year.
Meanwhile, China's state media say a magnitude-5.3 earthquake has sent rocks crashing down onto a road in the country's northwest and caused car crashes that left five injured.
The official Xinhua News Agency and US Geological Survey say the quake struck Wednesday morning in the sprawling Xinjiang region's Toksun county, about 2,300 km west of Beijing.
Xinhua says a driver who braked hard to avoid rocks crashing down in front of him in the neighboring Dabancheng district caused a 17-car pileup, leading to the injuries, including two that were serious.
