The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Second landslide feared
Rescue crews have been ordered to leave the site of a fatal landslide in southwestern China over concerns of a second slip, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
The order was issued yesterday after radar detected shifts in the ground where the mountains collapsed early on Saturday, said. It was not immediately clear if the rescue efforts had been suspended.
The massive landslide buried the entire village of Xinmo in a mountainous region of Sichuan province. Ten bodies have been found, and 93 people were missing.
A couple and their month-old infant were the only ones rescued so far.
Experts say the mountains flanking the village of more than 100 residents are structurally damaged after two major earthquakes, including a magnitude 7.9 quake that killed nearly 90,000 people in 2008 in Wenchuan, 25 miles away.
Saturday’s landslide carried an estimated 636million cubic feet (18million cubic meters) of earth and rock when it slipped down from steep mountains. Some of it fell from as high as a mile.