State media: 17 dead, 44 missing after landslides slam mountain towns in China

BEIJING (AP) — Landslides slammed into three mountain hamlets in western China early today, killing 17 people and leaving 44 missing, while crews drained a fast-rising reservoir in another part of the country following heavy rains.

The landslides swept through three different areas before dawn, state media said. In the worst-hit town of Xiaohe in Yunnan province, four died and rescuers were searching for 42 others, the official provincial newspaper Yunnan Daily reported on its website. Another 38 were injured.

In neighboring Sichuan province, seven died and one person was missing in Yandai village, while rescuers recovered six bodies and were searching for one person in Sima village, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Meanwhile, the waters in a reservoir near the far western city of Golmud began to subside Tuesday after hundreds of workers and soldiers finished digging a diversion channel, an official at the Qinghai province water bureau said.

The reservoir at one point swelled to almost four feet (more than a meter) above its warning level, the Golmud city government website said. Over the weekend, about 10,000 residents were evacuated as soldiers transported sandbags, rocks and dirt and used bulldozers to dig the emergency waterway, the website said.