China just contained the coronavirus. Now it is battling some of the worst flooding in decades.

On Sunday, Chinese authorities raised the country’s flood alert to the second highest level in a four-level emergency response system. Chinese President Xi Jinping described the flood control situation as “very bleak” and called for “stronger and more effective measures” to protect lives and property.

The unfolding disaster comes as China is still recovering from the aftermath of the coronavirus.

The pandemic and a week-long shutdown in much of China dealt a historic blow to the country’s economy. GDP contracted 6.8% in the first quarter, the first contraction Beijing has reported since 1976. The country promised in May to throw 3.6 trillion yuan ($ 500 billion) into its economy this year in cuts in taxes, infrastructure projects and other stimulus measures as part of a bid to create 9 million jobs and mitigate the consequences of the pandemic.

Floods are likely to complicate these recovery efforts. Some of the most affected areas include many of the regions most affected by the coronavirus, just months after strict blockade measures emerged.

While summer flooding is a common occurrence in China due to seasonal rains, this year’s deluge is particularly bad. It has affected 27 of the 31 provincial regions in mainland China, and in some places, water levels have reached dangerous levels not seen since 1998, when massive floods killed more than 3,000 people.

Most of these rivers lie in the vast Yangtze River Basin, which flows from west to east through the densely populated provinces of central China. The river is the longest and most important waterway in the country, irrigating large tracts of farmland and linking a series of inland industrial metropolises with the Shanghai commercial center on the east coast.

The floods wiped out a trail of devastation, devastating 8.72 million acres of farmland, destroying 28,000 homes and in some cases submerging entire villages.

According to the state news agency Xinhua, by Sunday, the floods had caused 82.23 trillion yuan ($ 11.75 trillion) of economic losses across the country.

In central China’s Hubei province, which accounted for more than 80% of all coronavirus cases in China, historical rainfall levels were recorded in several cities, causing flooding and landslides. As of Thursday, more than 9 million residents in the province of 60 million people have been affected, causing economic losses of 11.12 billion yuan ($ 1.59 billion), Xinhua reported.

Further down the Yangtze River in eastern Jiangxi province, water levels in China’s largest freshwater lake, Lake Poyang, rose to a record high of 22.52 meters (74 feet), well above from the alert level of 19.50 meters (64 feet), according to Xinhua.

As of Sunday afternoon, the floods had affected the lives of more than 5.5 million people in the province, with nearly half a million evacuated from their homes, CCTV of China’s state broadcaster reported.

Floods are unlikely to decrease as more heavy rains are forecast for the coming days. On Tuesday, the China Meteorological Administration issued a blue alert for heavy rains Tuesday through Saturday in various provinces of the country, including Sichuan, Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang.