Yunnan landslide death toll rises to 42

A landslide killed at least 42 people including seven from a single family when it smashed into a remote village in southwestern China on Friday, state media said.

Another two people were sent to hospital after being rescued from the debris while at least two more were still missing after the landslip engulfed 16 homes in the village of Gaopo, the official news agency Xinhua said.

Photos posted on Yunnan Web, run by the Yunnan provincial government showed rescuers in orange uniforms digging in wide swathes of clumpy mud against a backdrop of snow-covered, terraced hills.

A video posted on a Chinese social networking site appeared to show a group of villagers digging through thick mud and debris to uncover a body, which was carried away on a stretcher.

“The landslide, which brought about several hundred thousand cubic metres of watery mud to the village, buried all of the houses there,” Xinhua quoted a local rescue team leader, Sun Anfa, as saying.

The conditions “created great difficulties for rescue efforts amid low temperatures”, he added.