Beijing: A group of Vietnamese tourists who became trapped by a landslide in northwest China amid weeklong storms that have killed at least 89 people have reached a major town, Chinese state media reported on Sunday.
At least 100 tourists, including the 38 Vietnamese, became trapped Friday night in Gansu province after a landslide cut off traffic, the official Xinhua News Agency said. They were en route to a nature reserve in Sichuan province, which has been hit the hardest by the storms, and had reached accommodation by later that night following road repair work to free them.
They finally arrived in the central city of Xi`an on Sunday morning, but have cancelled their travel plans, Xinhua said, citing local authorities.
A man on duty at the Xi`an city government office said today that he had no information to share. The whereabouts of the remaining tourists was unknown.
Meanwhile, a collapsed dam triggered a flood at a scenic spot in the southern province of Guangxi on Sunday afternoon, killing eight tourists and injuring five others, Xinhua reported.
Authorities were searching for an unknown number of missing. It was unclear whether the dam collapsed as a result of the storms.
Sichuan has reported at least 48 storm-related deaths over the past week. A massive mudslide that struck a scenic resort outside the city of Dujiangyan in Sichuan on Wednesday killed 43 people.
Flooding in Sichuan was the worst in 50 years for some areas, with more than 220,000 people forced to evacuate.
Mudslides and flooding are common in China`s mountainous areas, killing hundreds of people every year.
In the northwest province of Shaanxi, 26 people died in landslides or house collapses. At least 12 workers were killed in the northern province of Shanxi when a violent rainstorm collapsed an unfinished coal mine workshop.
Another three people were drowned in a car in Hebei province outside Beijing.
PTI
