At least two dead and 47 buried alive as huge landslide tears through Chinese village & sparks mass evacuation
AT least two people have died while 47 have been buried alive after a massive landslide struck a village in China.
The tragedy happened in Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province around 6 am local time and forced the evacuation of 200 amid freezing temperatures.
Officials said rescue efforts were underway to find victims buried in 18 separate houses while so far two bodies have been pulled from the rubble.
Survivors and rescuers struggled with snow and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.
Luo Dongmei, 35, was sleeping when the landslide struck, but she survived and was relocated to a school building by local authorities.
"I was asleep, but my brother knocked on the door and woke me up.
"They said there was a landslide and the bed was shaking, so they rushed upstairs and woke us up," Luo said.
Luo, her husband and their three children, along with many other residents, have been provided with food at the school but are still waiting for blankets and other protection from the cold weather, she said.
Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1,000 people for a week.
The avalanches blocked roads, stranding both tourists and residents in a village in Altay prefecture in the Xinjiang region, close to Chinas border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
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 China's Inner Mongolia region.
The landslide in Yunnan also came just over a month after Chinas 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 magnitude 6.2 temblor that struck on Dec. 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province.
Nearly 1,000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed in what was Chinas deadliest earthquake in nine years.