24 killed in landslide triggered by rain

A LANDSLIDE triggered by heavy rain killed at least 24 people in southwest China’s mountainous Sichuan Province yesterday, the local government said.

And in northwest China’s Gansu Province, at least seven people died and two others remain missing after a weekend flood, authorities there said.

Extreme weather this summer has triggered a series of landslides and floods across the country, leaving scores dead and tens of thousands displaced.

The latest disaster hit a village in Sichuan’s Puge County at around 6am, Xinhua news agency said, adding that four others were injured and one person remained missing.

As of late yesterday afternoon, it is estimated that 71 houses and 5 kilometers of roads had been destroyed, the Sichuan government information office said in an online post.

Photos showed rescue workers digging with hoes through sticky brown mud, their bodies caked and splattered, and women in colorful headwraps typical of the Yi ethnic minority watching the rescue from a destroyed hillside.

One image showed hard-hatted men in bright orange jumpsuits holding an IV drip aloft as they carried a man through a muddy cornfield on a stretcher.

In Gansu’s Wenxian County, rainstorms hit three townships from Sunday evening to Monday morning, resulting in geological disasters including landslides, Xinhua reported.

According to the news agency, nearly 1,000 residents have been relocated to safety. The rain also left roads blocked, houses collapsed or damaged, and power supplies and communications interrupted.

The local government has sent thousands of people to take part in rescue and relief work, Xinhua said.

A massive landslide in June killed at least 10 people and buried dozens of homes in a village in Sichuan after rain brought down a mountainside.

In July, 63 people were killed by landslides and floods in the central province of Hunan.