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Fears are growing for more than 120 people missing after a landslide buried a mountain village in south-western China, with reports only three survivors have been pulled out of the mud and rock.
The landslide from a mountain engulfed the village of Xinmo around 6:00am (local time), burying 46 homes in the remote mountainous area of north Sichuan province, near the region of Tibet.
President Xi Jinping urged on the rescue effort, but state broadcaster CCTV reported that by midday the only people rescued were a couple and their two-month-old baby.
The provincial government said more than 120 people were buried by the landslide.
CCTV cited a rescuer as saying five bodies had been found.
Rescuers pulled out three people, two of whom had survived, the official Sichuan Daily newspaper said on its microblog.
The paper said rescuers made contact with a villager buried under the rubble who answered her mobile phone when they called and burst into tears.
The woman was in the bedroom of her home when the landslide hit the village, and rescuers were trying to reach her, the report said.
The paper also said a family of three, including a month-old baby, managed to escape just as the landslide started to hit their house.
"It's the biggest landslide to hit this area since the Wenchuan earthquake," Wang Yongbo, an official leading one of the rescue efforts, told CCTV.
Mr Wang was referring to China's deadliest earthquake this century, a magnitude 7.9 temblor that struck Sichuan province in May 2008, killing nearly 90,000 people.
The landslide at Xinmo also blocked a two-kilometre section of a river.
Mr Wang said an estimated 3 million cubic metres of earth and rock had slid down the mountain.
Photos posted on the site showed an area buried by earth and massive rocks.
Xinhua said there were 400 people involved in the rescue effort.
Police have closed roads in the county to all traffic except emergency services, the news agency said.
There is an extensive network of dams in the region, including two hydropower plants in Diexi town near the buried village.
A researcher from the Chengdu Chinese Academy of Social Science, a state-backed think tank, told China Radio International that heavy rainfall probably caused the slide.
The researcher, whose name wasn't given, also warned of the risk that a dam could collapse, endangering communities further downstream.
The area is prone to earthquakes, including one in 1933 that resulted in parts of Diexi town becoming submerged by a nearby lake.
Reuters/AP
First posted