Chinese rescuers dig for villagers lost in landslide
More than120 people were buried as rocks engulfed 62 homes and a hotel early Saturday.
BEIJING — More than 120 people were buried by a landslide of huge rocks and a mass of earth crashing into their homes in a mountain village in southwestern China early Saturday, officials said.
The landslide, which came from a mountain, engulfed a cluster of 62 homes and a hotel in the village of Xinmo in Mao County at about 6 a.m., the Sichuan provincial government said.
“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 up to 90,000 people.
The provincial government said more than 120 people were buried by Saturday’s landslide. CCTV cited a rescuer as saying five bodies had been found.
Rescuers pulled out three people, two of whom had survived, the official Sichuan Daily newspaper said on its microblog. The paper also said a family of three, including amonth-old baby, managed to escape just as the landslide started to hit their house.
Qiao Dashuai told CCTV that the baby saved his family because he was woken up by the child’s crying and heard a noise that alerted him to the landslide.
“We hearda strange noise at the back of our house, and it was rather loud,” Qiao said. “Wind was coming into the room so Iwanted to close the door. When we came out, water flow swept us away instantly.” He said they struggled against the flood of water until they met medical workers who took them to a hospital. Qiao said his parents and other relatives had not been found.
Mao County, or Maoxian, sits on the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau and is home to about 110,000people, according to the government's website. Most residents are of the Qiang ethnic minority. The village is known for tourism, and Chinese reports said it was unclear if tourists were among those buried.
The landslide blocked a 1.2mile section of a river. The provincial government said on its website that an estimated 282 million cubic feet of earth and rock — equivalent to more than 3,000 Olympic-size swimming pools — had slid down the mountain.
Experts told CCTV that the landslide was likely triggered by rain. A meteorologist told CCTV light rain in the area would continue for a few days.
The Sichuan Daily said rescuers made contact with a villager buried under the rubble who answered her cellphone when they called and burst into tears. The woman was in the bedroom of her home when the landslide hit the village, the report said.
Search and rescue efforts were underway involving more than 400 workers, including police. CCTV showed footage of rescuers in bright orange using earth movers and excavators but also relying on ropes and shovels to dig up the dirt.
Provincial police sent 500 rescuers with two dozen sniffer dogs to the site, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.