1,100 missing as death toll in China landslide rises to 337

RESCUERS dug through mud and wreckage yesterday searching for more than 1,100 people missing after flash floods and landslides struck northwestern China and killed 337, one of aseries of floods across Asia that have killed hundreds of people and spread misery to millions more.

In Pakistan, frustratedvictims railed against the government’s anaemic relief effort for the estimated 13 million people affected by the country’s worst-ever floods, while rescuers in mountainous India-controlled Kashmir raced to rescue dozens of stranded foreign trekkers and find 500 people still missing in flash floods that have killed 140.

Sunday’s disaster in China’s Gansu province killed at least 337 people and swamped entire villages. Another 1,148 were missing, Chen Jianhua, the Communist Party chief of the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, told the Xinhua News Agency.

Vehicles carrying aid supplies choked the road over bare, eroded mountains into the remote county seat of Zhouqu. Bodies wrapped in blankets were collected and laid on truck beds.

“There were some, but very few, survivors. Most of them are dead, crushed into the earth,” said survivor Guo Wentao. Associated Press Television News showed the bodies of his younger brother and sister, wrapped in quilts, being carried away on a stretcher as crying relatives followed.

Work was under way to restore power, water and communications. It was not known how many of the missing were in danger or simply out of contact.

More rain is expected in the region this morning, the China MeteorologicalAdministration said on its website.

Hoping to prevent further disasters, demolitions experts set off charges to clear debris blocking the Bailong River upstream from the ravaged Zhouqu, which remained largely submerged.

The blockage had formed a 3-kilometre-long artificial lake on the river that overflowed in the pre-dawn hours, sending deadly torrents crashing down onto the town. Houses were ripped from their foundations, apartment buildings shattered, and streets covered with a layer of mud and water more than a yard deep.

Meanwhile, the death toll from flash floods in the remote desert mountainsides in India-controlled Kashmir rose to 140 with the recovery of eight more bodies overnight, police said yesterday. The dead included five foreigners, but their nationalities were not immediately known. An estimated 500 more people were missing.

Yesterday, Indian air force helicopters evacuated 36 stranded foreign tourists from Zanaskar, a popular trekking area.

Another 100 foreigners were likely to be airlifted later to Leh, Ladakh’s main town, army spokesman Lt Col JS Brar said.