State-controlled channel CCTV said 16 homes in the Gaopo village in Zhenxiong county were engulfed by falling earth at around 8.20am on Friday morning. By Friday afternoon local time, rescue-workers had hauled 22 dead bodies from the ground, while 2 victims had been sent to hospital. “Dozens more” locals were still thought to be buried, China’s official news agency Xinhua claimed. Photographs carried in China’s state-media showed rescue workers in orange-overalls hunting for victims with the aid of an excavator. Xinhua said rescue workers were operating in near-freezing conditions. An official from Zhenxiong’s propaganda office, who gave his name as Mr. Wu, told the Daily Telegraph: “All the leaders are at the scene giving instructions on the rescue work. Right now the rescue work is the priority, trying to save more lives is the priority.” Local reports said a 700-strong emergency team had been dispatched to the disaster zone while Yunnan’s provincial governor, Li Jiheng, had also travelled to the region. The affected area is located around 550km northeast of Yunnan’s capital Kunming and not far from Yiliang county where 18 schoolchildren died last October when their school was buried in a landslide. That disaster was attributed to heavy rains and a series of strong earthquakes that had rattled through the region in September, claiming 81 lives.
