The crews are fighting their own “battle” against time, which continues today, Tuesday (23/1), their mobilization in the hope of finding and retrieving living residents who were buried when landslide hit its mountainous region Chinakilling at least 11 people, according to China's official Xinhua news agency.
The tragedy unfolded in the early hours of yesterday Monday, at 5:51 a.m. (local time; last Sunday at 11:51 p.m. Greek time), in Liangshui Village, Zhenxiong County, Yunnan Province, where a total of 47 people were buried in 18 residences. Authorities preemptively proceeded to hastily evacuate more than 200 other people.
Search and rescue teams continue to “race against time” to locate and retrieve missing people as temperatures remain below freezing, New China noted.
“Operations (…) are continuing throughout the night,” firefighter Li Shenglong told the agency, as the village was blanketed in snow.
Of the 47 people crushed, 11 were recovered dead, according to the latest official casualty count, released Monday night.
On the spot, as reported by the Athens News Agency, citing AFP and Reuters, around 1,000 members of search and rescue teams with dozens of specially trained dogs and around 120 vehicles are operating in New China.
Residents are desperate
Chinese state television CCTV broadcast footage showing rescue crews searching for survivors in the metal and concrete debris. In another video, residents can be seen around a fire they built to keep warm and eating instant noodles.
Residents of the wider area are also participating in the relief operation, the agency noted.
“Our village is not far away,” Hong Jie, 38, told New China. “We came mainly to distribute basic necessities, to prepare food, to distribute it to those in need,” he added.
The rock mass that flattened part of the village was “100 meters wide and 60 meters high, with a depth of about 6 meters,” explained Wu Junyao, director of the Natural Resources and Planning Department in Jiaotong, the city where Liangshui Village is administered. .
President Xi Jinping called on rescue workers on Monday to “do everything possible to limit the number of casualties”.
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Yunnan, a mountainous province, is home to many members of ethnic minorities. It is one of the poorest regions in China.
The disaster took place in a rural area surrounded by imposing snow-capped mountains. No official explanation has yet been given as to the causes.
Landslides are common in mountainous areas of southwestern China, especially after heavy rainfall.
In September, storms in Guangxi Prefecture (southern) caused a landslide in a mountainous area, killing at least seven people, according to Chinese media.
About twenty people were killed in August due to a landslide following a flash flood in a village near the megacity of Xi'an (north).
In June 2023, a landslide in Sichuan province (southwest), also mountainous and isolated, killed 19 people.
Source: News Beast
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