Society

Landslide toll: 4 dead, 17 still missing

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-10 02:49

GUILIN, Guangxi - The death toll rose to four as another two bodies were recovered after a landslide roared down rain-saturated hills and engulfed a makeshift dormitory in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Monday, local authorities said.

One worker was rescued at 2 p.m. Monday while 17 quarry workers remained missing, according to a spokesman for the city government's flood control and drought prevention office.

The landslide occurred at 1:30 p.m. in the village of Luojiang, located near the tourist city of Guilin, which was drenched by a rainstorm over the weekend.

The landslide, estimated to contain 250,000 to 300,000 cubic meters of mud, occurred in a valley and covered an area about as large as two football fields. It completely buried the workers' dormitory, according to Xinhua reporters at the scene.

More than 200 police, firefighters, medical workers and other rescue personnel continued digging through the rubble to find the buried workers. Two excavators were also operating at the scene.

The quarry is about a three-hour drive from Guilin.

Guilin was hit with heavy rains Saturday evening, with rainfall exceeding 100 mm at 25 monitoring stations around the city by Sunday afternoon. The nearby village of Zhongfeng was partially flooded, with 70 residents evacuated from their homes.

The heavy rain also created problems for tourists as 130 travelers were briefly stranded at a countryside resort.

Further, additional landslides might occur in the next 24 hours, warned He Xiaoming, director of the Guangxi regional geological hazard forecasting and warning center.

In neighboring Guangdong province, rainstorm-triggered floods left two people missing and affected 80,000 residents. The floods resulted in the destruction of 379 homes. Six bridges and several large swathes of farmland were also damaged by floodwater.