On Tuesday afternoon, rescue personnel in China’s Yunnan province battled frigid weather and snow to locate dozens of missing people. The death toll from the landslide grew to 20.
China Central Television (CCTV), a state-owned news outlet in China, reported on Tuesday that rescuers spent the night digging through debris at the landslide site in Zhenxiong County.
As reported by the Sichuan Daily Newspaper Press Group’s local media source The Cover, one rescuer stated that the unstable soil prevents the use of huge machines.
It is possible for the top to keep collapsing if the excavation is unloaded from below. Massive mechanical operations are challenging, and on-site rescues are quite challenging,” the worker was cited as saying in the paper.
As of this morning, twenty of the 47 persons reported missing from 18 homes following Monday’s landslide have been positively identified as dead, according to CCTV. The rescue crew had located three individuals, but another twenty-four remained missing.
Two more patients were sent to the hospital with injuries to the head and body, according to the National Health Commission.
At approximately 5:51 a.m. (2151 GMT), a landslide engulfed two villages in Zhaotong, a city in southern China, according to CCTV. The landslide covered residences at the base of a slope with brown mountain soil.
“The mountain just collapsed, dozens were buried,” a guy surnamed Gu, who observed the landslide, told the state-owned TV station for the neighboring province of Guizhou. The wreckage buried four of Gu’s family, he said.
“They were all sleeping in their homes,” he commented.
As to CCTV, around 500 individuals were forced to leave their residences.
The landslide, according to officials speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, began at a point where a mountain slope meets a sharp cliff.
