Beijing: At least 31 people were killed, with 24 still missing, after a landslide struck the mountainous Yunnan province in southwestern China as rescuers raced against time to locate survivors. The landslide struck the Liangshui village of Zhaotong city, trapping 47 people, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, whereas 500 residents were safely evacuated from affected areas.
According to a preliminary investigation by an expert group, the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep cliff-top area measuring almost 100 metres in width and 60 metres in height, the report said. China's Ministry of Emergency Management upgraded the emergency response level to the second-highest level from the Level-III emergency response for disaster relief activated by the Provincial Commission for Disaster Reduction immediately after the landslide.
The Chinese government has allocated disaster relief funds totalling 50 million yuan (about $7 million) to support disaster relief and emergency rescue work focusing on search and rescue, the relocation of affected people, secondary disaster detection, the repair of damaged homes, and other areas. The emergency management ministry dispatched teams to the disaster-hit areas to guide the rescue and relief work, reported Chinese media.
More than 1,000 rescue workers equipped with 45 rescue dogs and 120 vehicles, including excavators, loaders and transport vehicles, were carrying out search and rescue work at the site. As many as 33 firefighting vehicles and 10 loading machines were also mobilised to search for the missing. Over 200 tents, 400 quilts, 600 cotton coats and 14 sets of emergency lighting equipment were also provided.
"[We should] promptly organise rescue teams, make all-out efforts to search for missing individuals, and minimise casualties to the greatest extent possible," said Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, as quoted by Xinhua. The rescue site lies in the cold mountainous region of Yunnan province, where snow persists for days.
Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China. At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 at an open pit mine in the Inner Mongolia region. In 2021, 14 workers were killed when a tunnel under construction was flooded.
7.1-magnitude earthquakes strikes China
Hours after the landslide, a massive earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter Scale struck a sparsely populated part of China's western Xinjiang region on Tuesday, injuring six people and damaging more than 120 homes. At least 47 homes collapsed and 78 houses were damaged and some agricultural structures collapsed, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region posted on its official Weibo social media account.
The earthquake rocked Uchturpan county in Aksu prefecture shortly after 2 am, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said, prompting 200 rescuers to start rescue and relief work at the epicentre. Of the six people hurt, two had serious injuries and four were minor. The quake downed power lines but electricity was quickly restored, Aksu authorities reported.
Urumqi Railroad Bureau resumed services after 7 am following safety checks that confirmed no problems on the train lines. The suspension had affected 23 trains, the bureau serving the Xinjiang capital said on its official Weibo account. Multiple aftershocks were recorded, the strongest of them at 5.3 magnitude.
The rural area is populated mostly by Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group that is predominantly Muslim and has been the target of a state campaign of forced assimilation and mass detention. The region is heavily militarised and state broadcaster CCTV showed paramilitary troops moving in before dawn to clear rubble and set up tents for those displaced.
This came after China’s most powerful earthquake in years struck the northwest in a remote region between Gansu and Qinghai province. At least 149 people were killed in the 6.2-magnitude temblor that struck on Dec. 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province. Nearly 1,000 were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed in China’s deadliest earthquake in nine years.
Earthquakes are common in western China, including in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as well as the Xinjiang region and Tibet.
(with inputs from AP)
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