Six dead, over 100 missing in China landslide

BEIJING: Rescuers scoured through an avalanche of rocks into the night on Saturday in an increasingly bleak search for more than 100 people whose southwest China mountain village was buried by a huge landslide.

At least six bodies were pulled from the rubble while just three survivors -- a couple and their one-month-old baby -- were found after 62 homes in Xinmo village vanished under a mass of mud and rocks.

Heavy rain caused the side of the mountain to collapse onto the riverside village in the early morning, according to authorities.

Qiao Dashi, the baby´s father, said he had woken up after 5:00 am to change his crying son´s diaper when he "heard a big noise coming from the back".

"The house shook," he told state broadcaster CCTV from his hospital bed. "Rocks were in the living room. My wife and I climbed over, took the baby, and got out."

"I have superficial injuries. Overall, I´m okay. But psychologically, it´s hard. The entire village, with dozens of families, was flattened," he said, with a bandage around his head.

The Maoxian, or Mao county, government said six bodies were found while 112 people remained missing. State media had earlier revised the number of missing people down from 141 to over 120.

The landslide blocked a two-kilometre (one-mile) stretch of river and 1.6 kilometre of road, according to state media.

As night fell, authorities shined lamps onto the rubble while rescuers wore lights on their helmets as they sifted through the rocks, aided by sniffer dogs, according to photos from the official Xinhua news agency.

During the day, rescuers and local residents used ropes to move a boulder while others lifted rocks with their bare hands, according to videos broadcast by the Maoxian government and CCTV.

Nearly 2,000 police, soldiers and civilians were taking part in the rescue.
Bulldozers and excavators that were used earlier in the day stopped their work due to bad lighting as night fell, according to CCTV.

No sign of the village could be seen in aerial footage, which showed a grim and grey rock-strewn landscape covering the area where it once existed by a river.

"It´s the biggest landslide in this area since the Wenchuan earthquake," said Wang Yongbo, one of the officials in charge of rescue efforts, referring to the disaster that killed 87,000 people in 2008 in a town in Sichuan.