A landslide buried at least 47 people in Yunnan province, in southwest China, on Monday January 22, according to a preliminary estimate, state media said. The tragedy took place at 5:51 a.m. (9:51 p.m. Paris time) in the village of Liangshui, located in the canton of Zhenxiong, and “forty-seven people from eighteen households were buried”announced the New China news agency.
“More than two hundred residents were urgently evacuated, ten excavators, thirty-three fire trucks and more than two hundred rescuers were mobilized for search operations”said public television CCTV.
A video published by New China shows around ten firefighters in orange suits and helmets advancing on concrete blocks and other debris. Images published on the Chinese social network Douyin also show a mountain village covered in snow and with houses partly buried by what appears to be a landslide.
A region prone to landslides
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered relief efforts “do everything possible to limit the number of victims”according to instructions reported by CCTV. “It is appropriate to carry out the work of comforting the families of the victims and resettling those affected”he stressed.
The scene of the tragedy is located approximately 1,600 kilometers southwest of Shanghai as the crow flies and 350 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital, Kunming. Landslides occur regularly in mountainous southwest China, particularly after rainfall. No reason has yet been given for Monday’s tragedy.
In September 2023, storms in the Guangxi region (South) caused a landslide in a mountainous area which killed at least seven people, according to the local press. Around twenty people died in August after a landslide following a flash flood in a village near the large city of Xi’an (North). In June, a landslide in the province of Sichuan (Southwest), also isolated and mountainous, left nineteen people dead.