17 workers missing after rock collapse

11 pulled from rubble following sudden landslide over Sichuan railway section

Seventeen people were confirmed missing after a rock collapse in Southwest China's Sichuan province on Wednesday, the rescue team said on Thursday.

Following continuous rainfall, rocks and mud on mountains suddenly collapsed between the Lianghong-Aidai section of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway in Ganluo county in Sichuan's Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture at 12:44 pm on Wednesday.

Workers had been doing maintenance work at the time.

Chen Kun, an official of the China Railway Chengdu Group Co, said: "I spotted a strange movement on the mountain slope after a truck passed. And I shouted, telling everyone to run away."

Four minutes later, rocks and mud collapsed, burying workers and 70 meters of railway lines.

"The rocks and mud fell within two or three seconds," Chen said. "While we were running, we could feel rocks chasing us. If we had been a little late, we would have been buried there."

After the disaster took place, rescuers managed to save 11 workers buried by the landslide and helped more than 300 workers and other people, who were seeking shelter in a tunnel near the site of the landslide, evacuate the area.

More than 400 rescuers and 14 excavators were working at the site as of noon on Thursday.

Since late July, Ganluo has been frequented by rainstorms and landslides. Work at the Lianghong-Aidai section of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway was interrupted twice after rainstorms.

Although passenger train service was not resumed after the railway was restored in the wake of the previous two disasters, the freight train started operation immediately each time.

The Chengdu-Kunming Railway, nearly 1,100 kilometers in length, started operating in 1970. When Chinese workers were about to build the railway in the 1950s, foreign experts said the area along the planned railway was a "restricted zone where it was impossible to build a railway". Wriggling across undulated mountains, deep valleys and various rivers in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, it runs through complex terrain that is prone to geological disasters.

On July 9, 1981, a sudden mudslide triggered by torrential rain destroyed a railway bridge over a small river. A train coming out of a tunnel that the bridge connected to failed to brake in time, and several railcars fell off the bridge. The accident claimed more than 240 lives and was the deadliest accident in China's railway history. That accident took place about only 30 kilometers from where Wednesday's accident occurred.

According to a recent report from the Sichuan Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, heavy rainfall is expected in the near future in the Liangshan section of the Chengdu-Kunming Railway, and floods will raise the water level of many small and medium-sized rivers.