BEIJING/TOKYO: A landslide triggered by heavy rain killed at least 24 people in China’s mountainous southwestern province of Sichuan on Tuesday, state media reported. Extreme weather this summer has triggered a series of landslides and floods across the country, leaving scores dead and tens of thousands displaced. The latest disaster hit a village in Puge county at around 6 am, the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that four others were injured and one person remained missing.
As of late Tuesday afternoon, authorities estimated that 71 houses and five kilometres of roads had been destroyed, the Sichuan government information office said in a social media post.
Photos showed rescue workers digging with hoes through sticky brown mud, their bodies caked and splattered, and women in colourful headwraps typical of the Yi ethnic minority watching the rescue from a destroyed hillside.
One image showed hard-hatted men in bright orange jumpsuits holding an IV drip aloft as they carried a man through a muddy cornfield on a stretcher.
Landslides are a frequent danger in rural and mountainous parts of China, particularly after heavy rain.
A massive landslide in June killed at least 10 people and buried dozens of homes in a village in Sichuan after rains brought down a mountainside.
In July 63 people were killed by landslides and floods in the central province of Hunan. Some 1.6 million people were forced from their homes.
Typhoon Noru dumped heavy rain on Japan on Tuesday as it moved back out to sea, causing flooding and property damage while the number of injured reportedly rose to 51.
After making landfall in western Japan the previous day, the storm packing winds of up to 108 kilometres (67 miles) per hour ploughed across the main island of Honshu.
The typhoon was 40 kilometres off the coast of northern Niigata prefecture by 1:00 pm (0400 GMT) on Tuesday, slowly moving towards the northeast, Japan’s meteorological agency said. The storm earlier killed two people on outlying islands on Saturday.
Public broadcaster NHK said the number of people injured in accidents related to the typhoon had reached 51.
Aerial footage showed a flooded river in western Japan’s Shiga prefecture, while houses, rice paddies and roads were submerged. — AFP
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