At least 21 people died after a landslide struck in China’s western Gansu province as the Asian nation grappled with a weather crisis that had claimed dozens of lives across multiple regions by Wednesday morning and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people.
The landslide struck a valley in Tanchang county on Tuesday, trapping 33 people, mostly local villagers hired as temporary labourers at a state-run forestry farm. The mountainous region, with steep valleys and crisscrossing rivers, is prone to flash floods and landslides, particularly during the rainy season.
Search and rescue operations had now ended, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
The casualties in Tanchang added to the death toll from separate weather disasters across central and southern China. Typhoon Maysak, the country’s first typhoon of the year, killed at least six people in the southern region of Guangxi and forced the evacuation of about 130,000. It also left 11 people missing.
Authorities raised the flood-control emergency response in the regional capital Nanning to its highest level after a reservoir dam burst, with a video shared by state broadcaster CCTV showing a torrent of muddy water rushing past crumbled concrete walls.
Thunderstorms and gale-force winds killed another 11 people and injured more than 330 in the central province of Hubei, damaged nearly 5,000 homes and collapsed 22, according to Xinhua.
Chinese president Xi Jinping called for “all-out” rescue work in the affected areas. Water resources minister Li Guoying warned that more heavy rainfall was expected in Guangxi’s coastal and eastern regions as well as southwestern Guangdong.
“Due to the impact of persistent heavy rainfall and the prolonged passage of floodwaters at high levels, the safety of reservoirs and embankments in the affected areas faces a severe test,” Mr Li said.
China was also bracing for Super Typhoon Bavi, which caused catastrophic damage on the US island of Rota earlier this week with winds of up to 289km per hour.
The storm was expected to reach Taiwan around Friday, with the island’s weather agency warning that it could bring more than a metre of rain in some areas. Taiwan placed around 29,000 military personnel on standby to assist with relief efforts.
China regularly experiences severe flooding in summer, particularly in its central and southern regions. At least 22 people were killed in May after heavy rain struck central and southern parts of the country.
In 1998, floods killed nearly 2,000 people and destroyed almost three million homes along the Yangtze river.
