Chinese rescuers searched for some 30 people after a landslide on Saturday in southwestern Sichuan province buried 10 houses and forced hundreds of residents to evacuate.
The Ministry of Emergency Management deployed hundreds of rescuers including firefighters following the landslide in a village in Junlian county. Two people were pulled out alive and about 200 others were relocated, state broadcaster CCTV said.
A villager told BeijingNews that rocks were frequently seen rolling down the mountain since the second half of 2024, in some cases making sounds similar to firecrackers. The villager said geologists had inspected the area late last year, the state-run newspaper reported.
President Xi Jinping expressed his concern and urged authorities to make every effort to search for the missing people and minimize casualties, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang asked for an investigation and inspection of potential geological hazard risks in nearby areas. Li also said residents who were under threat should be evacuated to prevent another disaster, according to Xinhua.
The National Development and Reform Commission has allocated about $6.9 million from the central budget to support the emergency restoration of infrastructure and public service facilities.
Authorities are working to recover the wreckage of a plane crash in western Alaska that killed 10 people while investigators are trying to determine what caused the small commuter aircraft to go down in the icy Bering Sea.
The single-engine turboprop plane was traveling from Unalakleet to the hub community of Nome when it disappeared Thursday afternoon. The Bering Air plane was found the next day after an extensive search. Nine passengers and the pilot were killed.
Crews on Saturday were racing to recover the wreckage and the remains of those killed in the crash before expected high winds and snow.
Officials said contact with the Cessna Caravan was lost less than an hour after it left Unalakleet on Thursday. Authorities said the flight was a regularly scheduled commuter trip, and the aircraft went missing about 30 miles southeast of Nome.
The wreckage was found Friday by rescuers who were searching by helicopter. Local, state and federal agencies scoured large stretches of icy waters and miles of frozen tundra before finding the plane.
Unalakleet is a community of about 690 people about 150 miles southeast of Nome and 395 miles northwest of Anchorage. The village is on the Iditarod trail, route of the world’s most famous sled dog race.
Nome is just south of the Arctic Circle and is known as the ending point of the 1,000-mile Iditarod.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending people from various states to investigate the crash.
Radar data provided by the U.S. Civil Air Patrol indicated the plane rapidly lost elevation and speed, but it’s not clear why that happened, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Benjamin McIntyre-Coble said he was unaware of any distress signals from the aircraft. If a plane is exposed to seawater, an emergency locating transmitter sends a signal to a satellite, which then relays that message to the Coast Guard. No such messages were received by the Coast Guard.