A landslide buried 47 people in a remote location in Yunnan province in southwest China on Monday, state media said, without immediately announcing any deaths.
The tragedy took place at 5:51 a.m. (9:51 p.m. GMT Sunday) in the village of Liangshui, located in the canton of Zhenxiong, said the Xinhua news agency, according to which 18 homes were affected.
“
More than 200 residents were urgently evacuated, 10 excavators, 33 fire trucks and more than 200 rescuers were mobilized for search operations
,” said public television CCTV.
A video published by New China shows around ten firefighters in orange suits and helmets advancing on what appear to be collapsed concrete blocks and other debris.
Images posted by users of the Chinese social network Douyin show a mountain village covered in snow and with houses partly buried by a landslide.
Negative temperatures
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered rescue workers to “
do everything possible to limit the number of casualties
,” according to instructions reported by CCTV.
“
It is appropriate to carry out the work of comforting the families of the victims and resettling those affected
,” he stressed.
Contacted by telephone, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official in the village of Liangshui did not want to discuss the landslide and told AFP he was "
too busy
".
Yunnan is a mountainous province, populated by many ethnic groups and which is still one of the poorest in China.
The scene of the tragedy is located about 1,600 kilometers southwest of Shanghai as the crow flies and some 350 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital Kunming.
According to Chinese weather services, temperatures in Zhenxiong County are currently hovering around 0°C during the day and falling to -4°C at night.
Previous dramas
Landslides occur regularly in mountainous southwest China, especially after rainfall.
No reason has yet been given for Monday's tragedy.
In September, storms in the Guangxi region (south) caused a landslide in a mountainous area, which killed at least seven people, according to local press.
Around twenty people died last August after a landslide following a flash flood in a village near the large city of Xi'an (north).
In June 2023, a landslide in the Sichuan province (southwest), also isolated and mountainous, killed 19 people.