Engineers battled today to drain an unstable lake created by China's deadliest landslide in decades, fearing it could burst and swamp devastated areas where people are still hunting for survivors.
At least 702 people died in northwestern Gansu province when a torrent of mud and rocks engulfed swathes of the small town of Zhouqu at the weekend, and another 1,042 are missing, an emergency relief official said.
Officials have warned for years that heavy tree-felling and rapid hydro development were making the mountain area around Zhouqu more vulnerable to land slips, government reports show.
Locals kept waiting and weeping beside buried and destroyed homes where their relatives and friends were trapped, hoping at least to find the remains of loved ones.
A Tibetan man (52) was pulled from a collapsed apartment this morning, only the second person found alive since Sunday in a town buried in sludge up to seven metres deep in places.
Search efforts under a blazing sun and the pain of finding only corpses were also taking a toll on survivors, medics said.
"There are . . . people who have spent several days looking for their family members without any food or water. Some of them suffered from hypoglycaemia (a sharp fall in blood sugar levels), some fainted, some had a heat stroke," said military doctor treating them.
The landslide was the worst to hit China in six decades, state media said, and the most deadly single incident in a year of heavy flooding that had already killed nearly 1,500. Five people died in a landslide in northwest Shaanxi province after heavy rains last night, the Xinhua news agency said.
There is no sign of a let-up in the onslaught, with tropical storm "Dianmu" heading for northern China, and expected to bring strong rains as far away as the landslide area.
Fearing new downpours after days of sunshine that eased rescue work, local officials focused on preventing a catastrophic overflow of the brimming new lake in the centre of Zhouqu.
Officials are focusing on the loose dam thrown down by the landslide. Water levels behind the barrier fell slightly after controlled explosions created a channel to funnel some off, and today occasional blasts echoed around Zhouqu.
"Our county is surrounded by mountains, the barrier lake has clogged the river, and once water comes from upstream, we will definitely be flooded," said a survivor of the mudslide. "This is a great danger to us."
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from villages downstream as a precaution, as the surge of mud and flood waters would be almost impossible to escape.
Reuters