Massive Landslide Buries More Than 120 People In Southwest China
BEIJING (CBSNEWS/AP) - More than 120 were buried by a landslide that caused huge rocks and a mass of earth to come crashing into homes in a mountain village in southwestern China early Saturday, officials said.
The Xinhua News Agency reports 15 people have been found dead as workers retrieved the bodies from the debris on Saturday. The news agency says no new signs of life have been found. About 1,000 workers with life-detection instruments are searching for survivors.
The landslide, which came from a mountain, engulfed a cluster of 62 homes and a hotel in the village of Xinmo in Mao County at about 6 a.m., the Sichuan provincial government said. Officials said 1.6 kilometers, about 1 mile, of road were buried in the disaster.
"It's the biggest landslide to hit this area since the Wenchuan earthquake," Wang Yongbo, an official leading one of the rescue efforts, told state broadcaster China Central Television. Wang was referring to China's deadliest earthquake this century, a magnitude 7.9 temblor that struck Sichuan province in May 2008, killing nearly 90,000 people.