A landslide in southwest China’s mountainous Yunnan province early Monday buried 47 people, killed at least two, and forced the evacuation of 200 more amid freezing temperatures and falling snow.
The disaster happened before 6 am in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province. Rescue efforts are underway to find victims buried in 18 separate houses, the Zhenxiong district publicity department said.
Two bodies were pulled from the rubble, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
The cause of the landslide was not immediately known as survivors and rescuers struggled with snow and freezing temperatures that were forecast to continue for at least the next three days.
Luo Dongmei, 35, was sleeping when the landslide hit, but he survived and was evacuated to a school building by local authorities.
Rescue workers search through rubble after a landslide in liangshui village in southwest China’s Yunnan province on January 22, 2024. AP
“I was sleeping, but my brother knocked on the door and woke me up. They said there was a landslide and the bed was shaking, so they rushed upstairs and woke us up,” Luo said.
Luo, her husband and their three children, along with many other residents, have been provided with food at the school but are still waiting for blankets and other protection from the cold weather, she said.
Luo said he was unable to contact his sister and aunt, who live closer to the landslide site. “The only thing I can do is wait,” he said.
Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote ski area in northwest China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow have trapped more than 1,000 people for a week.
Debris drainage blocked roads, stranding tourists and residents in a village in the Altay region of Xinjiang region, near China’s borders with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China.
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At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 in an open-pit mine in China’s Inner Mongolia region.
In total, natural disasters in China left 691 people dead and missing and last year, caused direct economic losses of about $48 billion, according to the National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Natural Resources enacted emergency response measures for geological disasters and sent an expert work team to the site.
Emergency Management Minister Wang Xiangxi has gone to the landslide site to guide rescue operations, according to a statement from the ministry.
The landslide in Yunnan also comes just over a month after China’s strongest earthquake in years hit the northwest in a remote area between Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
At least 149 people were killed in the 6.2-magnitude earthquake that struck on December 18, flattening homes and triggering massive mudslides that submerged two villages in Qinghai province.
Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed in China’s worst earthquake in nine years.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
