China landslide leaves six dead, at least 17 missing

Beijing: Heavy rain caused a landslide in southwestern China Friday that killed at least six and left 17 others missing, local officials said.

The landslide hit early morning and buried 30 people in the village of Pianpo, in the province of Guizhou, the region's civil affairs department said on its official social media account.

Thirteen had been pulled from the rubble as of Friday afternoon six of whom had since died, while seven others were hospitalised, it said.

Rescue efforts were continuing, it added, noting that some 800 soldiers and relief workers were on-site.

Pictures posted online showed a deluge of mud had toppled trees and crushed cement buildings, leaving bricks and cinderblocks scattered in heaps of rubble. Rescue workers with hard hats and shovels dug at steep slopes of debris.

Flooding is common during the summer monsoon season in southern China, but rainfall has been particularly heavy this year and many areas have been lashed by torrential rains this week.

China's national observatory issued an orange alert for storms across the country's south and east on Thursday, the second highest warning in a four-tiered system and told people to take precautions against possible flash floods and landslides, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Whole villages were levelled and at least 98 killed in the eastern province of Jiangsu last week after the region was hit by a storm with hurricane-force winds and the worst tornado in half a century.