Young Chinese family alive because of crying baby
Couple managed to flee to safety with their son as avalanche of rocks and mud hit their Sichuan village
Shaken but miraculously not badly injured, a young couple who managed to escape a huge landslide that buried their village in northern Sichuan early on Saturday say they might not have been so lucky if it wasn’t for their crying baby waking them in time to reach safety.
Xiao Chunyan and Qiao Dashuai, both 26, were rescued along with their 38-day-old baby boy after the massive landslide struck Xinmo village just before 6am, burying more than 110 people and 62 households.
The couple were woken at around 5am by the baby’s cries and Xiao got up to change his nappy, she told Chengdu Economic Daily.
Just as Xiao was trying to get back to sleep, she heard a loud rumbling noise outside the house, and felt the ground shaking. Clutching their baby tightly, the couple ran for their lives as the house was hit with a deluge of rocks, water and mud.
Safely out, she turned back to see what was left of the village but it was already buried under rubble, Xiao was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Rescuers were still digging with their hands and shovels yesterday and using life detectors to search for survivors in treacherous conditions, as the heavy rains that triggered the landslide continued. Excavators could not access the village, where more than 1.6km of road have been blocked.