Search continues for buried villagers
CHINA: Crews searching through the rubble left by a landslide that buried a mountain village under tons of soil and rocks in southwestern China yesterday found 15 bodies, but more than 110 more people remained missing.
About 3000 rescuers were using detection devices and dogs to look for signs of life in an area that once held 62 homes and a hotel, Xinhua, the official news agency, reported.
‘‘We won’t give up as long as there is a slim of chance,’' the agency quoted an unidentified searcher as saying.
The identities of the 118 missing people in a landslide in southwest China will soon be made public, a government official told Xinhua.
Xu Zhiwen, executive deputy governor of the Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, the region where the landslide struck, also said that all 142 tourists who were visiting a site in the mountain village of Xinmo have been found alive.
Three members of one family were located five hours after the landslide. Qiao Dashuai, 26, said he and his wife awoke to cries from their 1-month-old son around 5.30am.
‘‘Just after we changed the diaper for the baby, we heard a big bang outside and the light went out,’' said Qiao. ‘‘We felt that something bad was happening and immediately rushed to the door, but the door was blocked by mud and rocks.’'
Qiao told CCTV his family was swept away by water as part of a mountain collapsed. He said they struggled against the flood of water until they met medical workers who took them to a hospital. His parents and other relatives were among the missing.
The provincial government said more than 120 people were buried by the landslide. The landslide, which came from a mountain, occurred in the village of Xinmo in Mao County about 6am.
‘‘It’s the biggest landslide to hit this area since the Wenchuan earthquake,’' Wang Yongbo, an official leading one of the rescue efforts, told state broadcaster China Central Television.
Wang was referring to China’s deadliest earthquake this century, a magnitude 7.9 temblor that struck Sichuan province in May 2008, killing nearly 90,000 people. - AP