DONGTING LAKE, China -- A heavy downpour dumped more rain onto China's dongting lake Monday, leaving millions of flood-threatened locals holding their breath and hoping the waters, which had started to recede, would not surge again.

During 90 minutes just before sunrise, 59 millimeters (2.3 inches) of rain fell around the lakeside city of Yueyang, which had remained dry and mainly sunny for more than five days, according to the local Qilishan monitoring station, AFP reported.

"If it only rains for a short period in a limited area, then the impact on the water level in the lake shouldn't be too huge," said Lin Hongwu, an official at the station, in central China's Hunan Province. "But if it goes on raining like this, the water level could start rising again."

Dongting's water levels had fallen roughly a centimeter per hour before the rain struck, although remaining more than 2.5 meters (8.3 feet) above official danger levels, the monitoring station said.

But after the rain, from 6:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M.

(2200-0000 GMT) the waters stuck at the same level, as officials waited anxiously to see if they would rise again.

The renewed danger to millions of people in one of China's most densely-populated regions came as another city downstream on the yangzte, which flows out of dongting, was placed on high anti-flood alert.

Jiujiang, which sits on the river at the northern tip of Poyang lake in Jiangxi Province, was on "top alert" from late Sunday with the situation considered "critical", the state Xinhua news agency said.

The Yangtze there was more than a meter (3.3 feet) over danger levels and expected to rise further, especially if more rain fell as forecast, the agency quoted local officials as saying.

Over the weekend, a state of emergency was declared in the the industrial city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, as the 7.5 million-plus population were menaced by a flood crest heading down-river from dongting lake, which it passed through early Sunday.

Monday morning's rain was a particularly unpleasant surprise for the 600,000 people of Yueyang, where water levels in the unpredictable dongting had steadily receded after the flood peak passed, leading many to hope they would be spared a repeat of disastrous floods four years ago.

More than 4,100 people died in 1998 in summer floods centered around the Yangtze.

This year, 1,070 people have died in floods and landslides around China from June, according to new official figures published in monday's state-run **** China Daily ***** newspaper.

People in the port town of Chenglingji, about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from Yueyang, were equally anxious -- and far from reassured by menacing dark clouds looming in the sky.

Li Lin, the owner of a noodle shop near the lakefront, was hopeful that her business would be hit yet again after floods had forced many of her regular customers to evacuate to safer places inland.

"People have started coming back, but the business is still only so-so," she said.

Despite the heavy rain early in the morning, water levels had fallen visibly in both Yueyang and Chenglingji.

Many of the sandbags that had protected the entrances of shops near the lake had disappeared, and people were dragging their bikes through alleys that were completely impassable just 24 hours earlier.

More than a million people, mostly farmers but also many soldiers, have spent recent days desperately strengthening dykes around the lake in preparation for possible floods.

The dongting basin, home to around ten million people, acts as a giant buffer for the mighty Yangtze, the source of endless tragedy throughout Chinese history.

So far more than 1.7 million people have been affected by small-scale flooding and are threatened by potentially massive flooding around the lake.