A landslide in southwest China’s Yunnan province on Monday buried at least 47 people, according to preliminary estimates, state media said. The accident occurred at 5:51 a.m. (9:51 a.m. Paris time) in Liangshui Village, located in Zhenxiong Canton, and “Forty people from eighteen households were buried”New China News Agency announced.
“Over two hundred residents were immediately evacuated, ten excavators, thirty fire trucks and over two hundred rescuers mobilized for search operations”Public television CCTV said.
A video published by New China shows about ten firefighters wearing orange suits and helmets moving over concrete blocks and other debris. Images published on the Chinese social network Duyin also showed a mountain village covered in snow and houses partially washed away by landslides.
Landslide prone region
Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered relief efforts “Do everything possible to limit the number of victims”According to the instructions reported by CCTV. “Comforting the families of the victims and rehabilitating the affected is the right thing to do”He emphasized.
The scene of the accident is about 1,600 kilometers southwest of Shanghai as the crow flies and 350 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital Kunming. Landslides occur regularly in mountainous southwestern China, especially after rains. No cause has yet been given for Monday’s crash.
In September 2023, a typhoon in the Guangxi region (south) triggered a landslide in a mountainous area that killed at least seven people, according to local press. About 20 people were killed in August after a landslide following a flash flood in a village near the major city of Xi’an (north). In June, a landslide in Sichuan (southwest) province, also isolated and mountainous, killed nineteen people.
