A landslide tore through a hillside community in southwest China on Friday morning, burying homes and killing at least eight people, with 34 others still missing as rescuers raced against unstable ground and the threat of more rain.
The slide struck at around 9:08 a.m. in Pengshui County, on the outer edge of the sprawling municipality of Chongqing, where a mass of rock and soil rushed downslope and buried more than 10 residential buildings near a section of the Wujiang River. State broadcaster reports put the confirmed death toll at eight, with 34 people unaccounted for, officials said.
A warning, then the collapse
The disaster came despite an early warning. Residents and local officials had noticed small rockfalls and unusual sounds from the hillside earlier in the morning and had begun moving people out, according to accounts from the scene. The main slide struck about an hour later, during the evacuation itself, which may have prevented an even higher toll but caught some residents before they could reach safety.
More than 1,100 people from the surrounding area were evacuated, and rescuers pulled at least 10 people from the debris, two of them seriously injured. Water, electricity and gas were cut off across a zone roughly a kilometre wide as a precaution.
A large rescue operation
China's Ministry of Emergency Management activated a level-two emergency response, its second-highest tier, and dispatched a 100-member team to the site. More than 800 rescuers were deployed, working with search equipment and slope-monitoring radar on terrain that officials described as unstable and dangerous. Incoming thunderstorms threatened to trigger further slides in ground already loosened by the initial collapse.
The area lies in karst mountain country, where steep slopes, heavy summer rains and communities built into the hillsides combine to make such disasters a recurring hazard. Authorities said they had not yet determined the underlying geological causes.
Leadership response
President Xi Jinping ordered authorities to organise the search and rescue effort and to investigate the cause of the slide, state media reported, and called for care in supporting the families of the victims. The central government allocated 50 million yuan, about $7.4 million, for rescue and relief, and sent thousands of relief items including tents and folding beds to those displaced.
Landslides and flooding are a persistent danger across much of China during the summer monsoon, when sustained rain saturates mountain slopes. For the families still waiting for word of the missing in Pengshui, the coming hours, and the weather, will determine how much worse the toll becomes.
