Persistent rain was the primary cause of a mudslide that killed 18 elementary students and one villager in southwestern China, the Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday.
All 18 elementary school students buried in a landslide were confirmed dead on Friday, while the other person also died after a hillside collapsed and smothered part of a village in mountainous southwestern China.
Xinhua said that it had rained continuously in the region since September 1 and that when the mudslide occurred, the accumulated precipitation was more than 297 millimeters, three times the normal level from previous years.
The hillside used for farming was steeply sloped and had loose soil saturated with rainwater, which triggered the mudslide, said Xinhua, quoting experts from an ad-hoc investigative group.
The Tiantou Elementary School was buried on Thursday when the hillside collapsed in Zhenhe, a village in Yunnan province, said Yiliang County government on its website.
All 18 students who were buried in the school were confirmed dead, said the government. Xinhua said the body of a 19th victim was found on Friday but gave no details. The county government, however, said earlier that a person was missing from a collapsed house.