Symbolic imageChongqing landslide death toll rises to 51
Local authorities in Chongqing, south-west China, said late on Thursday that 51 bodies have been recovered from the landslide that buried part of Pengshui county two weeks ago, with ten people still missing. Ten people were pulled out alive and more than 1,100 residents were evacuated. The search and recovery operation is continuing, although rescuers said last week they no longer detected signs of life.
What happened
The landslide struck Pengshui county in Chongqing, south-west China, on Friday, 17 July, when a mountainside collapsed onto a settlement along a riverbank. It swept away several residential buildings at the foot of the slope and buried others under boulders and mud, according to the South China Morning Post. Quoting the command centre of the rescue effort, the state news agency Xinhua reported that 51 people had been found and confirmed dead and ten were still missing, a tally local authorities released late on Thursday, 30 July. A statement by Pengshui officials said ten people had been rescued and more than 1,100 residents were brought to safety. Drone footage showed rescuers facing a mass of rock and mud that had crashed into a residential and commercial street, with the debris covering several hundred metres. More than 1,080 rescuers and 2,300 sets of equipment have been deployed since the disaster.
The view from outside
The only accounts available are from Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and the mainland state-affiliated Global Times, and both carry the same figures from the official rescue command centre. There is no independent verification of the casualty numbers, and neither outlet gives an account of what triggered the collapse.
What could happen next
The revised figure announced late on Thursday raises the confirmed toll to 51 while ten people remain unaccounted for, so the number of dead can still rise as debris is cleared. Rescuers had already said a week earlier that they detected no further signs of life, yet the recovery operation has been kept running with the full deployment. The next steps set out in the official statements are the continued search for the missing and the care of the more than 1,100 evacuated residents. The sources do not yet report an official finding on the cause of the collapse.