Society

More than 20 buried in quarry landslide in S China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-09 16:41

GUILIN - More than 20 quarry workers were buried after a landslide roared down rain-saturated hills and engulfed their makeshift dormitory in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Monday, local authorities said.

The landslide occurred at 1:30 p.m. in the village of Luojiang, located near the tourist city of Guilin, which was drenched by a rainstorm over the weekend, said a spokesman from the municipal government's flood control and drought prevention office.

The landslide, covering an area about as large as a football field, has completely buried the workers' dormitory, according to reporters at the scene.

Police, firefighters, medical workers and other rescue personnel are digging through the rubble to find the buried workers. Two excavators are also operating at the scene.

The quarry is about a three-hour drive from Guilin.

Guilin was hit with heavy rain Saturday evening, with rainfall exceeding 100 mm at 25 monitoring stations around the city by Sunday afternoon. The nearby village of Zhongfeng was partially flooded, with 70 residents evacuated from their homes.

The heavy rain also created problems for tourists as 130 travelers were briefly stranded at a countryside resort.

In neighboring Guangdong Province, rainstorm-triggered floods left two people missing and affected 80,000 residents. The floods resulted in the destruction of 379 homes. Six bridges and several large swathes of farmland were damaged by the floodwaters.