Two survivors found after China landslide kills 11 people

At least 11 people have died in a landslide that buried 47 people in freezing weather in a remote mountainous area in southwestern China, while two survivors were rescued.

The disaster struck on Monday morning in the village of Liangshui in the northeastern part of Yunnan province.

By evening, 11 bodies were retrieved and about 500 people were moved from the area.

Rescue crews continued to try and find victims who were buried in about 18 homes, the Zhenxiong county publicity department said.

Reports said the 11 bodies were from the group that was initially buried by the landslide.

The cause of the landslide was not immediately known as survivors and rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.

State news agency Xinhua, citing a preliminary investigation by local experts, said the landslide was triggered by the collapse of a steep cliff-top area, with the collapsed mass measuring around 100 metres wide, 60m high and about an average of 6m thick.

It did not elaborate what caused the initial collapse.

Rescuers struggled with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that were forecast to persist for at least the next three days.

Zhengxiong county lies about 2250km southwest of Beijing, with altitudes ranging as high as 2400 metres.

Heavy snow has struck many parts of China, causing transportation chaos and endangering lives.

Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote skiing area in northwestern China where dozens of avalanches triggered by heavy snow had trapped more than 1000 people for a week.

Landslides, often caused by rain or unsafe construction work, are not uncommon in China.

At least 70 people were killed in landslides last year, including more than 50 at an open pit mine in China’s Inner Mongolia region.

Minister of Emergency Management Wang Xiangxi has travelled to the landslide site to guide rescue operations, according to a statement from the ministry.

The landslide in Yunnan also came just over a month after China’s most powerful earthquake in years struck the northwest in a remote region between Gansu and Qinghai province.

At least 149 people were killed in the magnitude 6.2 temblor that struck on December 18, reducing homes to rubble and triggering heavy mudslides that inundated two villages in Qinghai province.

Nearly 1000 people were injured and more than 14,000 homes were destroyed in what was China’s deadliest earthquake in nine years.