BEIJING: Eight out of 14 people trapped due to a landslide in a village of Baiyun district in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, were rescued and immediately sent to the hospital by Wednesday evening, according to local emergency management authorities.
However, one of the rescued people died later due to injuries. Due to continuous heavy rainfall, the landslide occurred around 8:30 am in Dayuan village, which is in the northern mountainous part of Guangzhou, and damaged houses, authorities said in a news release on Wednesday. Efforts were underway to locate and rescue the remaining trapped individuals, while on-site rescue workers said the risk of secondary disasters posed significant challenges to their rescue efforts.
Tens of meters away from the landslide site, occasional falling of soil from the mountain was still seen, according to rescue workers.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 996 residents around the core area of the landslide site had been evacuated, according to Tan Huasheng, a member of the Party working committee of Dayuan subdistrict. Local authorities have arranged two hotels as evacuation shelters for residents, with efforts underway to thoroughly inspect nearby mountain slopes.
Prolonged heavy rainfall has hit most parts of Guangdong, with roads, railways and flights greatly affected over the past few days. As of Wednesday morning, 75,752 people had been evacuated to safety in Guangdong, according to local emergency management authorities.
According to local hydrological authorities, the average rainfall in the province was 56.6 millimeters from 8 am on Tuesday to 8 am on Wednesday, while heavy rainfall was mainly concentrated in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan and Qingyuan.
Across the province, 23 rivers and 26 hydrological stations exceeded the warning level, hydrological authorities said.
Due to the prolonged and accumulated rainfall, local hydrological authorities issued a total of 74 flood warning alerts between Tuesday and Wednesday.
From Wednesday to Thursday, several rivers in Guangdong were expected to experience a rise in their water levels of approximately 2 to 6 meters. In some areas, water levels at certain monitoring stations may still exceed the alert levels. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
