2010-06-30 07:03

BEIJING - A child's body was the first to be retrieved on Tuesday from the site of a landslide triggered by a rainstorm, in which 99 villagers were buried on Monday in Southwest China's Guizhou province.

Rescue workers help an elderly woman make her way through the mud on Tuesday in Dazhai village, Guanling county of Guizhou province, where 107 villagers were buried in a landslide on Monday afternoon. [China Daily]

The child, who has yet to be identified, was found under debris at 5:50 pm in Dazhai Village, Gangwu township, Guanling county, a rescue headquarters spokesman said.

The rescue headquarters corrected the number of buried villagers from 107 to 99 late Tuesday night after further checks. Some villagers were previously thought missing but later found alive.

Rescue workers struggled in arduous conditions on Tuesday to recover people buried in the landslide. Rescue headquarters said there was little chance of finding survivors.

The landslide occurred at about 2:30 pm on Monday in Dazhai village, said a spokesman for the government of Anshun city, which administers Guanling.

"The chance of survival for the buried villagers is quite slim," Luo Ning, mayor of Anshun who led the rescue effort, said on Tuesday.

Weather conditions forced the rescue operation to be suspended on Monday evening, because a rainstorm that had been pounding the township since Sunday night posed the risk of triggering further landslides, rescue officials said.

More than 600 soldiers and local residents participated in the rescue operation, which included cleaning up the debris from the landslide that covered the roads to the village.

The mud-rock flow surged 1.5 km to the Guangzhao Hydropower Station on the Beipan River, said Wang Mengzhou, Party secretary of Guanling county.

Dazhai villager Huang Anquan, 68, whose legs were injured, was carried on his son's back to escape the disaster.

"When I saw how high the water rose in the river near my home, I know there was a landslide. We rushed out immediately," Huang said.

Some 1,000 villagers living near the site were evacuated to safety, State broadcaster CCTV reported on Tuesday evening.

The government has begun to provide disaster relief to the evacuees, including drinking water, food, tents and quilts, the report said.

More than 200 medical staff were drafted in to assist the evacuees and treat possible survivors.

Rain has battered the Gangwu township for an entire week, with a record rainfall of 257 mm on Sunday, according to the local meteorological bureau.

If the weather forecasts are accurate, the township is due to receive an additional 30 to 40 mm of rain on Tuesday.

Heavy rain and floods in South China have left at least 235 dead and 109 missing as of last Friday, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said in a statement.

A total of 3.05 million residents have been evacuated over the past two weeks.