Society

Downpours trigger lethal landslide

By Xu Wei (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-13 09:47

A villager tries to get his motorcycle out of mud at his house in Zhanqiao township, Yueyang city, Hunan province, on Saturday. Heavy floods hit the township on Friday. [Chen Zhuo/China Daily]

BEIJING - At least 19 people were confirmed dead in a landslide on Friday that devastated villages in Zhanqiao township, Yueyang city, Central China's Hunan province, an official said on Sunday.

The landslide hit the villages before dawn. Eight people are still missing.

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Maojiazu of Guanshan village suffered the most, as 24 out of some 30 households were buried by the mud flow, Zhou Fu, chief of Zhanqiao, said in a telephone interview on Sunday.

In total, 31,000 people in 22 villages were affected by the landslide, Zhou added.

The landslide also devastated farmland and cut the only road linking the village to the outside.

A panel of experts, sent to investigate the cause of the landslide by the province's water resources department, denied speculation that the landslide was triggered by man-made causes and said it was caused by the heaviest rain in the area for 300 years. In the six hours from midnight on Thursday, 276 millimeters of rain fell.

A woman grieves during a mass funeral for victims of the flood in Linxiang, Yueyang city, Hunan province, on Saturday. [Photo/Agencies]

They said that the region's recent severe drought made the ground drier than usual, allowing the heavy rains to sweep away sand and rocks. This resulted in the landslide that roared down a mountain slope 300 meters above Guanshan village.

The investigation found that there were no illegal mines or breached reservoirs in the area where the landslide occurred, ruling out any man-made causes.

Across the rain-pounded Hunan province, which previously suffered two months of drought, floods and landslides have affected 3.61 million people and caused an economic loss of 2.22 billion yuan ($342 million), the province's water resources department said.

The heavy rain that hit the province since Thursday is expected to last till Wednesday.

Mao Yongbin, 36, told Xinhua News Agency on Sunday that he lost both his parents in the landslide and their home is now a stretch of muddy land.

"My father's body has been found, but my mother is still missing," said an emotional Mao.

Mao's case is not the worst in the village. "There are families who lost eight or nine members," he said.