15 bodies found after landslide buries scores

Associated Press

BEIJING

Crews searching through the night in the rubble left by a landslide that buried a mountain village under tons of soil and rocks in southwestern China found 15 bodies, but more than 110 more people remained missing.

About 3,000 rescuers were using detection devices and dogs to look for signs of life in an area that once held 62 homes and a hotel, Xinhua, the official news agency, reported.

“We won’t give up as long as there is a slim of chance,” the agency quoted an unidentified searcher as saying.

The identities of the 118 missing will soon be made public, a government official told Xinhua.

Xu Zhiwen, executive deputy governor of the Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, the region where the landslide struck Saturday, also said that all 142 tourists who were visiting a site in the mountain village of Xinmo have been found alive.

“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.

Three members of one family were located five hours after the landslide. Qiao Dashuai, 26, said he and his wife awoke to cries from their 1-month-old son around 5:30 a.m.

“We heard a strange noise at the back of our house, and it was rather loud,” Qiao said. “Wind was coming into the room so I wanted to close the door. When we came out, water flow swept us away instantly.”

He said they struggled against the flood of water until they met medical workers who took them to a hospital. Qiao said his parents and other relatives have not been found.