A landslide devastated a remote and hilly area of southern China on Monday, killing eight people and burying dozens more.
When a landslide hit Zhenxiong County in Yunnan province before daybreak, it buried 18 homes and forced over 200 residents to flee, according to state media.
Eight people have been confirmed deceased, and four have been rescued, according to a report from state broadcaster CCTV at around 5:30 p.m. (0930 GMT), though the health of the four is unknown.
According to CCTV, 200 rescue workers have been summoned, along with dozens of fire engines and other equipment.
One local told the state-run Beijing News outlet that she was asleep when the disaster hit and that parts of her ceiling had fallen onto her head.
“At the time I thought it was an earthquake, but later I knew it was the hillslope collapsing,” another resident told the outlet.
Both were quoted under pseudonyms.
Footage shared on social media by a local broadcaster showed emergency workers in orange jumpsuits and helmets forming ranks outside a fire station as snowflakes whirled through the air.
Other images showed rescuers picking through towering piles of collapsed masonry in which a few personal belongings could be seen.
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered “all-out” rescue efforts, CCTV reported.
Xi “demanded that rescue forces are organised quickly… and efforts made to reduce casualties as far as possible,” the broadcaster reported him as saying.
He added that it was “necessary to properly handle the work of comforting the families of the deceased and resettling affected people”.
CCTV broadcast an image it said showed a firefighter working to pull a trapped villager from inside a home affected by the disaster.
The local village head declined to speak about the landslide when contacted by phone, telling AFP he was “too busy”.
Landslides common
Landslides are widespread in Yunnan, a remote and generally impoverished region of China where steep mountain ranges meet the Himalayan plains.
The accident occurred on Monday in a rural area surrounded by high snow-covered peaks, according to official TV footage.
Temperatures in Zhenxiong were barely above freezing on Monday afternoon, but were expected to drop below zero in the evening, according to weather data.
There was no immediate official explanation for what may have caused the landslide.
Efforts to establish what happened are underway, Xinhua reported.
China has seen a series of natural disasters in recent months, some of which were caused by extreme weather occurrences such as sudden, intense downpours.
According to media accounts, rainstorms in Guangxi’s southern area caused a mountain avalanche in September, killing at least seven people.
Heavy rains triggered a similar calamity near the northern city of Xi’an in August, killing more than 20 people.
In June, a landslide in southwestern Sichuan province, which is likewise isolated and hilly, killed 19 people.