Landslides killed at least two people and buried another 45 in southwestern China’s Yunnan province on Monday as a cold wave blanketed much of the country, Chinese state media said.
State media said more than 500 people had been evacuated. Aerial footage of the disaster scene broadcast by state broadcaster China Central Television shows a dark, gaping ditch cut into a snow-covered mountainside, cutting into a wide band of terraced fields and clustered with low houses. The situation was visible.
The landslides occurred just before 6 a.m. Monday and hit two small villages in the northernmost part of the province, near the border between Sichuan and Guizhou provinces. Hexing and Heping villages are sparsely populated and located in a mountainous area that was once one of the poorest regions in China.
Hundreds of workers were climbing through snow-covered rubble to rescue at least 18 missing residents, state media said. Temperatures at the site of the landslide Monday morning were below freezing and snow continued to fall.
Temperatures will drop in many parts of China over the weekend, and a snowstorm is expected across large areas of southeastern China on Monday, the China National Meteorological Center said. Due to the weather, some trains traveling through the area were suspended.
The cause of the landslides in Yunnan Province and its relationship to the cold wave are not yet clear. The climate in that part of Yunnan province is typically subtropical, with average temperatures in January around 36 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the country’s meteorological authorities.
Joy Don I contributed a report from Hong Kong.