Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
More than 100 people remain missing after a massive China landslide.
More than 100 still missing as 3,000 rescuers keep searching
Crews searching through the night in the rubble left by a landslide that buried a mountain village under tons of soil and rocks in southwestern China found 15 bodies, but more than 100 more people remained missing.
About 3,000 rescuers were using detection devices and dogs to look for signs of life in an area that once held 62 homes and a hotel, the official Xinhua 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 provincial government of Sichuan on Sunday released the names of the 118 missing people. It’s unclear if the 15 bodies have been identified.
Relatives were sobbing as they awaited news of their loved ones. A woman in a nearby village told The Associated Press that she had no information on her relatives in Xinmo, the mountain village that was buried. She said she had only heard that body parts were found.
Xu Zhiwen, executive deputy governor of the Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, the region where the landslide struck early Saturday, said that all 142 tourists who were visiting a site in 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 5:30 a.m.
“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 state broadcaster 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.