At least four killed and 17 trapped in China landslides

BEIJING: At least two people were killed in landslides that trapped up to 19 in southwestern China’s Guizhou province on Thursday, state media reported, with rescuers struggling to reach them in mountainous terrain.

“Two people who had been trapped by a landslide in Changshi Township, Dafang County, Guizhou Province, were found dead,” said state broadcaster CCTV.

Two landslides occurred in separate parts of Dafang county, the first at around 3:00 am (1900 GMT Wednesday) and another at 9:00 am, the broadcaster reported earlier.

“Preliminary investigations (showed)… that 19 people were trapped” in the debris, it said.

Aerial footage by the broadcaster showed a village inundated by brown mud that blanketed farming fields and pooled at the foot of a densely forested mountain.

The emergency management ministry urged rescue teams to make “every possible effort” to recover the missing people.

However, it said the remote region was “high and steep” and that rescue efforts were proving “difficult”.

Landslides causes closure of Karakoram Highway

Separately, Indonesian rescue teams were searching for 19 people missing soon after heavy rain caused a landslide at a gold mine in its easternmost region of Papua, officials said on Monday.

Torrential rain triggered a landslide late on Friday in a small-scale mine run by local residents in the Arfak mountains in West Papua province, said Abdul Muhari, the spokesperson of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency.