About 30 builders buried in landslide in southeast China

BEIJING – A landslide in southeast China on Sunday buried about 30 workers at the construction site of a hydropower project, an official said.

China Central Television reported that rocks and mud buried a dormitory at the site in Taiming county in Fujian province around 5 a.m. Sunday.

An official at the county’s publicity department said by phone that the cause of the landslide was still unclear, but that the area has seen rainfall in the past few days.

Heavy rain has affected much of southern China since Wednesday, triggering floods and landslides. The official Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday that rainstorms led to the evacuation of more than 1,000 people in Guangxi region, and collapsed a road that left one person dead and one missing.

The Taiming county official, who only gave his surname of Wei, said firefighters and police were attempting to reach the buried, who were working on a hydropower project.