BEIJING: Rescuers raced on Tuesday to find dozens of people still trapped after a landslide struck a remote and mountainous part of southwestern China, as the death toll rises to 31.

The pre-dawn landslide buried 18 homes and sparked the evacuation of more than 200 people when it struck in Zhenxiong County, Yunnan province in the early hours of Monday.

Nearly 36 hours since the disaster, 31 people have been confirmed dead, state news agency Xinhua said.

Rescue workers are now in a “race against time” to find those still missing, after a night of sub-zero temperatures. “Search and rescue efforts persisted through the night,” firefighter Li Shenglong told Xinhua.

Wu Junyao, director of the natural resources and planning bureau of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the disaster “resulted from a collapse in the steep cliff area atop the slope”.

Two hundred rescue workers have been dispatched to the scene as well as dozens of fire engines and other equipment. The site is covered in thick snow and rescuers are “using all kinds of tools to search for survivors”, Xinhua reported.

Wu told Xinhua the rescuers are digging through collapsed debris of “100 metres in width, 60 metres in height, with an average thickness of around six metres”.

CCTV showed footage of rescue workers digging through twisted metal and concrete overnight in a bid to find survivors. Other CCTV footage showed locals huddling for warmth around a fire in a shelter, eating instant noodles.

People from the surrounding area have chipped into to help with relief efforts, state media said.

“Our village is nearby,” Hong Jie, 38, told Xinhua. “Our main focus is on distributing supplies, cooking, and delivering food to those in need.”

‘All-out efforts’

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered “all-out” rescue efforts.

Landslides are common in Yunnan, a far-flung and largely impoverished region of China where steep mountain ranges butt against the Himalayan plateau.

Monday’s disaster occurred in a rural area surrounded by towering peaks dus­ted with snow, state media footage showed. There was no immediate official explanation for what may have caused the landslide.

Efforts to establish what happened are underway, Xinhua reported.

China has experienced a string of natural disasters in recent months, some following extreme weather events such as sudden, heavy downpours.

Rainstorms last September in the southern region of Guangxi triggered a mountain landslide that killed at least seven people, according to media reports.

In August, heavy rains sparked a similar disaster near the northern city of Xi’an, killing more than 20 people.

On Tuesday, Pakistan’s caretaker foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani expressed sorrow over the loss of precious lives in a landslide in Yunnan, saying that Pakistan stood with China in this hour of tragedy.

“Our deepest condolences to the victims and their families, and best wishes for the ongoing search and rescue operations,” he wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2024