Hopes Fade After Landslide Destroys Chinese Village<br />Xinhua said that The area for rescue work is narrow, and it will be difficult to expand rescue forces to a large scale.<br />"Earthquakes and heavy rain in recent years have exacerbated the level of geological hazards in our county." The Paper, a news website based in Shanghai, reported<br />that the village of Xinmo had been listed in 2016 as vulnerable to geological hazards.<br />By CHRIS BUCKLEY and JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZJUNE 24, 2017<br />BEIJING — Hundreds of rescue workers tapped, poked and dug through the earth and rubble left by a landslide<br />that smothered a village in southwestern China on Saturday, looking for signs of survivors among the 100 or more people who were missing.<br />A county government directive issued late last year counted 769 places across the county vulnerable to landslides and similar hazards.<br />The village, Xinmo, in Mao County, Sichuan Province, lies in a region of brittle, unstable mountains vulnerable to landslides and tremors.<br />But the landslide struck around 5:40 a.m. after a night of rain with no warning,<br />and many residents of the 62 or so homes in the village were apparently sleeping or awakened too late by the roar of a falling hillside.<br />"He pulled up his wife, carried the child, and as they were running, they were tossed around by a massive roar of air, became caught in the mud<br />and rocks and then fought their way out of danger," China Central Television news reported, citing Mr. Qiao.
