BEIJING: At least 120 people are missing and feared buried alive by a landslide that unleashed huge rocks and a mass of earth that crashed into their homes in southwestern China early Saturday.
The landslide from a mountain engulfed a cluster of more than 40 homes and a hotel in the village of Xinmo at about 6am, the government of Maoxian (Mao County) in Sichuan province said. Provincial officials initially said that 141 people were missing but later revised the figure down to 120. County authorities were quoted as saying that six bodies had been recovered by late Saturday.
Rescuers pulled out three people, two of whom had survived, the official Sichuan Daily newspaper said on its microblog. The paper also said a family of three, including a month-old baby, managed to escape just as the landslide had started to hit their house.
Images from the scene broadcast by state-run CCTV showed a large-scale rescue operation under way involving bulldozers and heavy diggers. Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered "all-out efforts" to save those buried.
More than 1,000 workers with life-detection instruments are engaged in the search for survivors, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The landslide blocked a 1.6-kilometre section of road and a two-kilometre section of a river. Wang Yongbo, a local rescue official, told the state broadcaster CCTV that an estimated 3 million cubic metres of earth and rock -- equivalent to more than 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools -- had slid down the mountain.
A meteorologist interviewed by CCTV said there had been light rains in the area that would continue for a few days.
Maoxian, is home to about 110,000 people, according to the local government website. Most of the residents are of the Qiang ethnic minority.
The village is known locally for tourism and Chinese reports said it was unclear if tourists were among the people buried by the landslide.