The death toll from rain-triggered mudslides in Zhouqu county rose to 337, with 1,148 others still missing in yesterday’s tragedy, Chen Jianhua, Communist Party chief of Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
About 117 people were injured, of whom 28 were severely wounded in yesterday’s landslides, one of the worst natural disaster to hit the region, the report said.
State television showed pictures of a 75-year-old- women being pulled out from the debris of a collapsed home.
Chinese authorities have sent more than 4,500 soldiers, police and rescue workers to help in search and rescue operations after the landslides in ethnically Tibetan region.
Meanwhile, in a bid to release the flooded waters, rescuers today blasted debris that blocked a west China river in order to safely release potential flood waters in Zhouqu county.
Personnel from the Lanzhou Military Area Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) used explosives to blast the blockage in the Bailong River in Gansu province this morning in a bid to clear the blocked river water which inundated the township, an official spokesman said.
