Eight dead, 19 missing after flash flood and mudslide in Sichuan

Eight people were confirmed dead and 19 others remained missing as of 2:30 pm on Sunday after a flash flood and mudslide hit a village in Kangding, Southwest China's Sichuan province, local officials said on Sunday.

The disaster occurred at about 3:30 am on Saturday in Ridi village, damaging houses and causing a tunnel bridge of the Yakang Expressway to collapse.

Four vehicles carrying 11 people fell off the bridge between two tunnels along the expressway from Kangding to Luding county when it collapsed, with two people killed, one person rescued and sent to hospital and eight others missing.

Six people in nearby Ridi village were killed and 11 are missing, according to the headquarters overseeing the rescue mission.

Wang Xiaohui, Party chief of Sichuan, who rushed to the disaster site on Sunday to oversee the rescue operations, emphasized that the top priority is to make all-out efforts to search for and rescue the missing people and minimize casualties.

He called for that more attention be paid to helping the people affected by the disaster and ensuring that they are properly relocated. He also urged that damaged infrastructure be repaired and normal traffic be restored as soon as possible.

The local authorities said they have been making all-out efforts to search for and rescue the missing. More than 1,500 people, 311 sets of vehicles and engineering machines, as well as a light helicopter and a large aerial drone, have been deployed for the search and rescue operation.

Two mobile emergency meteorological observation stations are providing hourly weather forecasts and warnings, the authorities said.

The provincial government also dispatched five experts from the West China Hospital of Sichuan University and the Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital to help with medical treatment.

Wang Yunsheng, a professor at the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at the Chengdu University of Technology, said an assessment by an expert group showed that the disaster was triggered by a combination of incessant rain and melting ice and snow.

He said the disaster took place in a 10.5-kilometer mountain gully named after Ridi village. The gully's peak stands at an altitude of about 5,700 meters, and there is a drop of over 4,000 meters to its mouth at the lowest point.

"The recent high temperatures have accelerated the melting of ice and snow on the mountains," Wang said. "In addition, continuous rainfall has led to the blockage and collapse of the gully, triggering the flash flood and mudslide."