2010-07-02 10:10

The landslide lasted for two minutes, and there was no warning.

It would have been very difficult for the villagers to escape, said an official with the Guizhou Provincial Work Safety Bureau.

"The sound was much like thunder. When I looked back, the whole village had disappeared," said survivor Zhang Jin.

The landslide consisted of about 1.5 to 2 million cubic meters of mud, and it was unstable and likely to trigger additional landslides, said Yin Yueping, a researcher with the Ministry of Land and Resources.

At least 1,000 villagers living in the area have been evacuated.

Torrential rains have been ravaging south China over the past two months. A once-in-three-century rainstorm was seen in Lingyun County of Guizhou's neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Sunday to Tuesday, and residents have to go outdoors by boat.

"It will take more than 10 days for the flood to wane because of the geological structure here," said Zhou Lixin, secretary of Lingyun's Luolou Town Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Heavy rainstorms also hit east China's Shandong Province and northwest China's Qinghai Province. Flood water blocked the rail transport in Shandong for two hours, affecting 22 trains, Thursday.

Local meteorological bureaus said heavy rains would continue to pound Shandong and some area of Qinghai Province.