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The road gave way on Wednesday morning after an obvious landslide. At least 30 other people were injured, many of them seriously.
By Joy Dong and Keith Bradsher
Joy Dong reported from Hong Kong and Keith Bradsher from Beijing.
A 20-metre stretch of road in rural southeastern China collapsed on Wednesday after days of heavy rain, killing 36 other people and injuring 30 others.
Photos released after the incident gave the impression of showing that a landslide had started under two lanes of a road running along a hill. A gigantic scar of brown dust ran down the hill among bright green foliage, leaving a giant void in the road.
Vehicles lay in disorder at the foot of the hill, under the hole, blackened and still smoking from a chimney that had raged vigorously overnight, drawing large numbers of chimney trucks to the area.
State media said many survivors were seriously injured, and drivers and passengers suffered severe bone fractures and injuries to internal organs.
A witness told state media that he heard a loud bang and for a moment struggled to maintain control of his car. Then he learned that the road had collapsed at his height and that the cars had disappeared into the void.
Traffic on roads is heavy across China with the start of a five-day national holiday on Wednesday. The segment of the highway that collapsed was on the eastern outskirts of Meizhou, a city in Guangdong province. Many of the victims were on their way to neighboring Fujian province at the start of the holiday.
More than 500 police, emergency and other rescue personnel have been deployed. Local traffic police closed the road to traffic in both directions. Much of the northeastern corner of Guangdong, where the twist of fate occurred, is a rugged region with hills. terrain. Another stretch of the same road was briefly closed in April last year after a landslide covered the road with mud. No deaths or injuries were reported at the time.
An uninterrupted accumulation of warm, moist air from the South China Sea to the southwest has left southern China facing a prolonged era of excessive weather over the past two months. The Central Meteorological Observatory issued seven orange warnings, the point for severe weather, in April.
On Saturday, a rare tornado and hailstorm ripped through the nearby city of Guangzhou, a production hub in southern China, killing five more people and injuring 33 others. And on Tuesday, Shenzhen Airport issued an orange warning for significant flight delays for the first time. this year.
Keith Bradsher is the Times’ Beijing bureau leader. In the past he served as bureau leader in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit, as well as a correspondent in Washington. He lived and reported on the pandemic in mainland China. Learn more about Keith Bradsher
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