The death toll from a highway collapse in southeastern China rose to 48 on Thursday. Search teams spent two days digging through dangerous mountainous terrain.
After a month of heavy rain in Guangdong province, one side of a four-lane highway in Meizhou city was closed around 2 a.m. Wednesday. Twenty-three vehicles fell down the steep slope, and some burst into flames. A construction crane was used to lift the burnt and dismembered vehicle.
Meizhou city officials said three other people were unidentified and DNA tests were being conducted. It was not immediately clear whether they died, but this brings the death toll to 51. A further 30 people sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Meizhou Mayor Wang Hui said at a late afternoon press conference that the search was still ongoing. No foreigners have been found among the victims.
Xinhua News Agency, via AP
Search efforts have been hampered by rain and dirt and gravel sliding down the slope. The disaster left an earth-colored, curved chasm in the lush forest landscape. Excavators excavated an even larger area of the slope.
Wen Yongdeng, Communist Party secretary of the Meizhou City Emergency Management Bureau, said, “Some of the vehicles involved were set on fire, making rescue operations more difficult.”
“During the collapse, most of the vehicles were buried in the soil and a large amount of soil covered them,” he said.
He added that prolonged heavy rains have saturated the soil in the area, “making secondary disasters more likely to occur during rescue operations.”
The county where the road collapse occurred has received more than 56 centimeters of rain in the past four weeks, more than four times as much as last year. Some villages in Meizhou suffered flooding in early April, and the city has seen increased rain in recent days.
Parts of Guangdong province have experienced record rainfall, flooding and even hail over the past two weeks. Last weekend, a tornado struck Guangzhou, the provincial capital, during a rain and hailstorm, killing five people.
The collapse of the highway section occurred on the first day of the five-day May Day holiday, when many Chinese people travel domestically and internationally.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, Chinese President Xi Jinping said all regions of China should strengthen surveillance and early warning measures and investigate all risks to ensure public safety and social stability. Stated.
