sOCIETY
E
arly on the morning of June 24, 2017, at around 5:45am,
a sudden and devastating landslide hit Xinmo Village in
Maoxian County, in the Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous
Prefecture of southwest China’s Sichuan Province. The landslide
smashed through some 60 homes, and over 100 people were reported
missing.
According to Sichuan Provincial Department of Land and Resourc-
es, days of heavy rain triggered the landslide high on the mountain
above Xinmo Village, causing the dislocation of as much as 8 million
cubic metres of earth, resulting in the blocking of a two-kilometre
section of the river in the valley.
Over 1,000 rescue workers equipped with instruments for detect-
ing survivors in the rubble were sent to the site. More than 300 villag-
ers living nearby were immediately evacuated to safety in case of any
secondary landslides.
Xiao Zhilin, vice director of the Sichuan Provincial Geology and
Environment Monitoring Office told ChinaReport, “The rainfall
caused the loosening of soil on the mountain slope, which led to theUnpreventable Disasters
High-tech solutions
The recent landslide in Maoxian County in sichuan Province took
place some 1,250 metres above a village in the valley below. now the
villagers have no choice but to move
By Zhang YunRescue workers at the site of the landslide, June 24, 2017Photo by Tao Ke/Zhang Zhi from Chengdu Business/VCG