PEOPLE’S LIBERATION Army rescuers used explosives to blast debris blocking the Bailong river in northwest China to safely release potential floodwaters after a landslide on Sunday that killed scores and left hundreds missing, feared dead.
The official death toll from the landslide in Gansu province is 137, according to state media, but rescuers expect this figure to rise. Two-thirds of Zhouqu town, in the province, is still under water.
There are 1,348 people still missing, and their relatives have arrived in the disaster zone to help with the excavation efforts, some of them using their bare hands to dig.
There have been some hopeful signs, and rescuers’ spirits were raised when a 74-year-old woman was found alive early yesterday, after being trapped in a fourth-floor apartment.
However, the chances of finding many more survivors were slim, rescuers told the Xinhua news agency.
“Nearly every family has sent a young man to join the rescue,” said Guo Tsering (57), whose wife is missing.
Yueyuan village, which translates as “Full Moon” village, was wiped out by the landslide, and there are fears that 90 per cent of its 500 residents perished in the disaster, said Fang Jianjun, deputy head of Chengguan township government.
It remains difficult to get access to the site of the disaster, and supplies of food and water are running low, while tents and rescue equipment are bogged down a few hundred metres away.
The civil affairs ministry has sent 5,000 sleeping bags to the county, 650km from the provincial capital, Lanzhou. It had also sent four batches of relief supplies, including 5,200 tents, 20,000 coats and 8,000 folding beds.
Chinese premier Wen Jiabao visited the area again yesterday and exhorted rescuers to do their best and survivors not to give up hope.
The landslide in Zhouqu is the worst single incident in what has been a terrible year for flooding. Nearly 1,500 people have already died in landslides and flooding caused by months of torrential rains across the country, the ministry of civil affairs said.
More rain is forecast for this week and thousands of people have been moved as a precaution downriver from an unsecured natural dam. The area is prone to landslides, but conditions were worsened this year by a long drought in the area. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake may also have loosened the mountainside.