China: At least 20 people killed, dozens missing in Yunnan landslide

The death toll from a landslide in China’s Yunnan province has risen to 20, with 24 people missing.

The landslide in Zhaotong city occurred at 05:51 local time (21:51 GMT) on Monday, trapping dozens of people.

Rescue teams are still searching for the missing people in sub-zero temperatures in a race against time, state news agency Xinhua said.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the landslide was caused by a steep cliff failure, the report said.

The collapsed mass was about 100 meters wide, 60 meters high and had an average thickness of about 6 meters, Xinhua News Agency quoted city authorities as saying.

More than 500 people were evacuated from their homes and nearly 1,000 rescue workers were sent to the scene. President Xi Jinping ordered an “all-out” rescue effort in the area, and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing reportedly led a group to the scene to guide rescue efforts.

“Search and rescue operations continued throughout the night,” firefighter Li Shenglong told state news agency Xinhua.

One villager told local media that most of the residents were elderly or children. Another resident told local news outlet Jim News that the landslide occurred on Monday morning while many people were still sleeping.

“There was a very loud noise and shaking, it was like a big earthquake,” she said.

A video clip shared on social media showed rescue workers walking over piles of rubble with snow-covered mountains in the background. Personal belongings can be seen scattered among the collapsed masonry.

The remote mountainous region of southwestern China is prone to landslides. In January 2013, a landslide in the county killed at least 18 people.

Separately, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck Wushi County in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region at around 2 a.m. local time on Tuesday. State broadcaster CCTV said no casualties were reported, but some houses were damaged and power outages were occurring in some areas.