Landslide Kills 19 in China’s Sichuan Province

By Staff, Agencies

A landslide tore through a mining company’s worker dormitory in southwestern China, killing 19 people, authorities said.

The disaster struck early Sunday in a mountainous rural district of Sichuan province’s Leshan county, where rains have been falling constantly for weeks.

More than 180 people were mobilized to help find those buried under the debris in an operation that wrapped up on Sunday afternoon.

Those killed were all apparently workers with the Jinkaiyuan mining company, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The landslide occurred at around 6 a.m. [2200 GMT] on Sunday morning in a mountainous area near Leshan city in the south of the province.

Leshan city was hit by heavy rain over the two days before the incident, weather tracking data indicated.

Heavy rains in southwestern China have triggered the displacement of hundreds of residents as authorities issued more than 13,000 disaster warning messages.

Guangyuan, Nanchong, Dazhou and Bazhong counties in Sichuan province were heavily affected by rains since Tuesday, said provincial disaster relief authorities, according to the Global Times newspaper.

Authorities organized 398 emergency transfers involving 392 hazards in 10 cities.

A total of 2,552 people from 1,181 households have been transferred to safer places since Tuesday.