Society

Four dead, 88 missing after mudslides

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-08-19 19:17

GONGSHAN, Yunnan - Four people have been confirmed dead and 88 others are still missing Thursday after mudslides hit a remote mountain town in southwest China's Yunnan Province Wednesday, said local authorities.

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By 5 pm Thursday, rescuers had found two more bodies, bringing the death toll to four, said Hou Xinrong, deputy head of the Drung-Nu Autonomous County of Gongshan.

Most of the missing people are employees of the Yujin Iron Mine and villagers in the Puladi Township in Gongshan, where the mudslides struck at about 1:30 am Wednesday.

"It was raining hard on Tuesday night, but I didn't care because I'm accustomed to that," said Li Xiuhua, who had eight relatives among the missing in the hardest-hit Litoudi Village.

Li survived because she does not live in the low-lying valley areas, but high in the mountains.

"I was woken up suddenly late in the night by cries from my fellow villagers: 'Run! Run! Run! Here comes a mudslide! Run to the higher place'," she recalled.

"I dressed myself immediately and ran out of my house. I saw the village in the valley had disappeared and houses buried in mud and rock. There were loud cries everywhere and some villagers were crazily digging the mud to find their relatives.

"If it had been daytime, more people could have been saved. But my mother, my elder sister and her husband, my nieces.... Eight people, I lost all of them," Li said.

More than 1,000 residents have been evacuated, and some 30 injured were being treated in the hospital, said He Zhengjiang, a publicity official in Gongshan.

"The mudslides spread across an area of about 130 mu (8.7 hectares), and left some 300,000 cubic meters of mud and rock," he said.

At least 10 trucks carrying iron ore and 21 houses were buried. Roads were damaged, and power supplies and telecommunications were disrupted.

The mudslides also destroyed a bridge and blocked parts of the Nujiang River flowing through the mountains, lifting the water level in the upper reaches by up to 6 meters.

Days of torrential rain triggered the mudslides, local officials said.

The central and local authorities have allocated emergency funds and sent relief teams, tents, quilts, overcoats, clothes and rice to the area.

More than 1,100 people, including police officers, fire-fighters and border troops, have been mobilized for the rescue and search operation in the sparsely-populated area high in the mountains bordering Myanmar.

Tang Wenjun, an officer with the Nujiang contingent of frontier defense, said he had led a 15-strong squad to disinfect the mudslides-hit area and nearby residential areas.

The villagers and rescuers could call their family for free via five satellite phones provided by the local telecommunications operator.

"We also provided them with handset chargers and phone cards," said Luo Binggong, general manager of the Gongshan branch of China Mobile Communication Corporation.

In a temporary settlement center in Litoudi Village, a Xinhua reporter saw more than 20 villagers whose homes had been leveled by the mudslides huddling in a 40-square-meter room, with relief goods piled up in a corner.

"The villagers have kept coming, and we're trying our best to ensure that everyone has something to eat and places to sleep. Now, their emotions are basically stable," said Li Yongxiang, deputy head of Puladi Township.

Besides rescuers, many residents from nearby villages had also rushed to help, said Li Jun, head of Litoudi Village.

On June 26 in Puladi, a mudslide killed 11 people at the construction site of a hydropower station.

Torrential rains have wreaked havoc across China this summer, incurring the worst flooding and landslides in decades.

Massive mudslides on August 8 in Zhouqu county, in Northwestern Gansu province, have left 1,287 people dead and 457 missing.