MORE THAN 100 people from 38 families were buried and trapped by a landslide in Guizhou province in southwestern China yesterday, and rescuers are holding out little hope for their survival.
The landslides came after heavy rains which have blighted southern China in recent weeks, claiming 379 lives this year, 239 of them in the past few weeks. Three million people have been evacuated amid widespread fear as the rainy season has only started.
The ongoing rains, particularly in the southwest, could trigger more disastrous landslides.
The landslide occurred in Dazhai village, Guanling county, the Xinhua news agency reported. The exact number of casualties was not immediately known, a spokesman from the nearby local government in Anshun City said, but another official told the state broadcaster CCTV that nearly half a hill had collapsed, engulfing a wide area in soil.
TV footage showed rescue workers trying to dig down through a large pile of mud with concrete slabs sticking out. They had to run five kilometres to get to the site, because it was inaccessible by road. As such, supplies are scratchy.
Local villager Cen Chaoyang told Xinhua he had rushed out of his house when he heard the landslide and managed to escape.
“I called the others to flee, but it was too late. I saw some people behind me being buried,” he said.
More than 15,000 soldiers have been deployed to aid rescue operations in the region. It has caused power cuts and has played havoc with drinking water reservoirs and destroyed roads.
The floods are among the worst in southern China since 1998, when more than 3,600 people were killed and more than 20 million were displaced.
Chinese prime minister Wen Jiabao, who tends to take an active interest in disaster relief and is often the government’s official voice on natural disasters, has urged all-out efforts to rescue the buried people. Vice prime minister Hui Liangyu is going to the site with a team of experts and officials, Xinhua reported.
Rescue workers in southern China have only just finished repairing a breach in the Changkai dyke near Fuzhou, in Fujian province, that had forced the evacuation of 100,000.
