Five dead, 17 missing after landslide in south China

Five dead, 17 missing after landslide in south China

2011-05-10 10:20:38 GMT+7 (ICT)

QUANZHOU, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- At least five people were killed and 17 others remain missing after a landslide hit a makeshift dormitory in southern China on Monday, state-run media reported on Tuesday.

The incident happened at around 1 p.m. local time on Monday when a landslide roared down rain-saturated hills and engulfed a makeshift dormitory for around two dozen workers of a quarry in Luojiang Village of Quanzhou County, located in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The state-run Xinhua news agency reported that the landslide, caused by days of continuous heavy rainfall, buried an area equivalent to two basketball fields with a volume of 250,000 to 300,000 cubic meters (8.8 million to 10.6 million cubic feet) and a thickness of around five meters (16 feet).

About an hour after the landslide, rescue workers were able to free two of the 24 trapped people. One of them later died in a local hospital while the other remains in a serious but non-life threatening condition.

By early Tuesday morning, Xinhua reported, rescuers had retrieved four bodies at the scene while 17 others remain missing. Officials do not expect to find other survivors.

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