Tsunami-like Landslide hit China, buried hundreds

More than 500 rescuers who are also residents thereat are looking for any life-saving signs of the people that were buried. But authorities believed that there is a very slim chance that those people who are buried can survive as the government rescue team is still underway and rains continuously aggravate the situation with the added difficulty of negotiating the rough terrain going to the site of the landslide, said Pi Yingfang, a local government spokeswoman.

The rescuers were seen on TV walking on a trail of sticky mud and rocks as they attempt to recover the bodies by digging and sifting through debris to find the buried victims. On the other hand, the government rescuers were not able to reach the site because of inaccessibility and were forced to stop yet to wait the weather to calm down as authorities fear for another landslide brewing along the way.

It was reported by China’s civil affairs ministry that this disaster is only one among the few weather-related incidents that hit China, caused by floods and landslides for more than two weeks already which afflicted parts of the country’s south, east and center. It recently recorded a total of more than 235 people died and a hundred are still missing while more than 69 million people are reportedly displaced while fleeing their homes from the affected areas.

In the meantime, the National Meteorological Centre issued statement that concerned authorities are now taking steps, to conduct immediate inspections at areas where possible deadly geological disasters may occur brought about by the heavy rains, to prevent the same incident to happen.

The authorities admitted that floods are among the worst weather-related incidents that wrought havoc in the southern part of the country since 1998 which registered more than 3,500 people killed and over 20 million displaced. This year alone, about 379 people were recorded to have died from floods and the government suffered about $12.1 billion in economic losses.