Barbados Today

BEIJING– A landslide has buried between 30 and 40 people in China’s Sichuan province, state media say.

The landslide occurred in Zhongxing town today morning. More than 100 rescuers with rescue dogs were at the scene, Xinhua news agency said.

The landslide followed days of torrential rain across parts of China that has caused floods in some areas.

Yesterday, a bridge in Sichuan’s Jiangyou collapsed, with at least 12 people missing.

Footage from Chinese state media, meanwhile, showed the dramatic rescue of a Deyang factory worker, who was stranded by the floods after the factory was washed away.

Zhongxing is in Dujiangyan city, one of the places badly hit by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

The landslide, which spanned around two square kilometres, damaged at least 11 homes, Xinhua reported.

“So far we only know 11 families were buried and more than 200 residents have been evacuated,” a local official told AFP news agency.

Patrol members in Dujiangyan told local media that by the time they arrived at the scene, a few hours after the landslide, “everything was already a vast expanse of water”.

Eyewitnesses described seeing stones and debris running down the hill, covering around eight holiday homes in less than three minutes, local media reported.

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Meanwhile, rescue teams had been deployed in Jiangyou to search for those missing after Qinglian bridge collapsed, state media said.

At least six vehicles were reported to have plunged into the river when it came down after days of heavy rain.

Jiangyou’s local government said that the river volume had suddenly increased to a 50-year high yesterday. (BBC)