More than 100 villagers feared buried in massive Chinese landslide

More than 100 villagers were feared buried Saturday in a massive landslide triggered by heavy rain in Sichuan Province in southwestern China, according to local officials and the Chinese media.

Fifteen bodies had been found by late Saturday, the China Global Television Network reported. It said 118 people in the village of Xinmo in Mao County were missing and 62 homes had been crushed beneath huge boulders and a mass of earthen debris.

Rescuers were using heavy equipment and life-detection equipment in hopes of finding some people still alive under the tons of rock.

The Sichuan Daily said rescuers made contact with one villager buried under the rubble who answered her cellphone when they called and burst into tears. The woman was in the bedroom of her home when the landslide hit the village, and rescuers were trying to reach her, the report said.

The paper said a family of three, including a month-old baby, managed to escape just as the landslide hit their house around 6 a.m.

Qiao Dashuai told state broadcaster CCTV that the baby saved the family because he was woken up by the child’s crying and was going to change the baby’s diaper when he heard a noise that alerted him to the landslide.

“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 had not been found.

Wang Yongbo, a local rescue official, told CCTV that some 105 million cubic feet of earth and rock — equivalent to more than 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools — had slid down the mountain, the Associated Press reports. 

Authorities said the upper section of a nearby mountain collapsed due to heavy rain, hurling rocks into the valley. A sea of boulders and mud covered almost a mile of road and blocked over a mile section of a river.

Almost 3,000 firefighters, medical staff and armed police officers were rushed to the scene, CGNT reported, but meteorologists said the rescue effort could be hampered by the prospect of three more days of rain.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday ordered all-out rescue efforts for anyone trapped in the rubble, the state-owned Xinhua news agency reported.