Landslide buries up to 40 people in China's Sichuan province

PanARMENIAN.Net - A landslide has buried between 30 and 40 people in China's Sichuan province, local media said, according to BBC News.

The landslide occurred in Zhongxing town on Wednesday, July 10 morning. More than 100 rescuers with rescue dogs were at the scene.

The landslide followed days of torrential rain across parts of China that has caused floods in some areas. On Tuesday, a bridge in Sichuan's Jiangyou collapsed, with at least 12 people missing.

Zhongxing is in Dujiangyan city, one of the places badly hit by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

The landslide, which spanned around two square kilometres, damaged at least 11 homes. Patrol members in Dujiangyan told local media that by the time they arrived at the scene, a few hours after the landslide, "everything was already a vast expanse of water".

Eyewitnesses described seeing stones and debris running down the hill, covering around eight holiday homes in less than three minutes, local media said. Meanwhile, rescue teams had been deployed in Jiangyou to search for those missing after Qinglian bridge collapsed.

At least six vehicles were reported to have plunged into the river when it came down after days of heavy rain.

Jiangyou's local government said that the river volume had suddenly increased to a 50-year high on Tuesday. "The high levels of flood sediment, and strong and destructive force of the water, caused the Qinglian bridge to collapse," it said.

Two other bridges, one in Jiangyou and one in Deyang city, were also washed away, officials said.

Chinese officials said that the heavy rain had affected more than 508,000 people in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, damaged around 300 homes, and forced the evacuation of 36,800 people

In 2011, over five million people were reported to be affected by deadly floods in eastern China. In 2008, Sichuan was hit by a devastating earthquake which led to almost 90,000 people dead or missing.