Emergency teams in China’s southwestern Sichuan province raced against time Sunday to locate 28 people after a landslide triggered by rains killed one person and buried homes.
Nearly 1,000 personnel were deployed following the landslide in the village of Jinping in Junlian county on Saturday. Some officers navigated through the remains of collapsed buildings, using drones and life-detection radars to locate any signs of life with the help of locals who were familiar with the area, state broadcaster CCTV said.
Two injured people were rescued and about 360 others evacuated after 10 houses and a manufacturing building were buried, CCTV reported.
At a news conference Sunday, authorities said preliminary assessments attributed the disaster to heavy rainfall and local geological conditions. They said these factors transformed a landslide into a debris flow about 1.2 kilometers (more than half a mile) long, with a total volume exceeding 100,000 cubic meters (3.5 million cubic feet).
The rescue operation was hampered by continuous rainfall and more landslides. According to preliminary estimates, the collapsed area was about 16 football pitches in size and many houses were carried far by the debris flow.
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong was at the site to guide the operation and visited the affected residents, according to official news agency Xinhua.
Liu also noted the surrounding slopes still pose collapse risks, calling for scientific assessment to ensure the safety of the operation and prevent another disaster, Xinhua said.
China has allocated about $11 million to support disaster relief and recovery efforts.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. Last year, a landslide in a remote, mountainous part of China’s southwestern province of Yunnan killed dozens of people.