Rescuers were mobilized in China on Tuesday to find dozens of people still buried after a landslide in a mountainous area that had already killed 11 people, according to state media.
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The tragedy occurred early Monday morning in the village of Liangshui in Yunnan Province (southwest of the country). It affected 18 houses and led to the preventative evacuation of more than 200 people.
Rescue teams are now in a “race against time” to find the missing people in sub-zero temperatures, the official Xinhua news agency said.
“Search and rescue operations continued throughout the night,” a firefighter, Li Shenglong, told the agency, as the scene of the tragedy was covered in snow.
A total of 47 people were buried at the time of the tragedy and 11 were already found dead, according to the latest death toll identified by authorities on Monday evening and reported by New China.
More than 1,000 rescuers as well as dozens of dogs and around 120 vehicles were sent to the scene of the accident, the agency said.
Public television CCTV broadcast images of rescuers searching for survivors among metal and concrete rubble. Another video showed residents warming up by the fire and eating instant noodles.
Local residents also took part in rescue operations, Xinhua reported.
“Our village is not far from here,” Hong Jie, 38, told the agency. “We mainly come to distribute essentials, cook and deliver food to those who need it.”
The collapsed rock mass was “about 100 meters wide and 60 meters high, with an average thickness of about six meters,” Wu Junyao, director of the Natural Resources and Development Bureau, told Xinhua. the planning of the city of Zhaotong, which is responsible for the village of Liangshui.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday called on emergency services to “do everything possible to limit the number of victims.”
Yunnan is a mountainous province with many ethnic groups and one of the poorest in China.
Monday's disaster occurred in a rural area surrounded by towering snow-capped peaks, according to state media.
No reason has yet been given to explain the tragedy.
Landslides occur regularly in the mountainous southwest of China, especially after rainfall.
In September, storms in the Guangxi region (south) caused a landslide in a mountainous area, killing at least seven people, according to local press.
Around twenty people died last August in a landslide following a flash flood in a village near the city of Xi'an (north).
In June 2023, 19 people died in a landslide in Sichuan Province (southwest), which is also isolated and mountainous.