Days of relentless rain unleashed by tropical cyclone Saudel have triggered a landslide in eastern China, killing at least two people and leaving ten others unaccounted for. State media reported on Sunday that around 12 homes were destroyed in the disaster, underlining how the storm's prolonged downpour has battered the region.
Part of a village buried in Suichuan County
According to a statement from local authorities, a section of a village in Suichuan County, Jiangxi province, was hit by the landslide early Saturday morning. Rescue teams rushed to the site as soon as the alert went out, and nearby residents were moved to safer ground given fears that more of the hillside could give way. Officials have not said how many people were living in the affected part of the village at the time.
One body recovered, two pulled out alive
Emergency crews pulled one person from the debris who had already died, while two others were rescued alive and are reported to be in stable condition. State broadcaster CCTV said rescuers located another of the missing individuals on Sunday morning, but that person, too, was found dead, taking the confirmed toll higher even as the search for the remaining missing people continues without a fixed timeline for when it might end.
Saudel's third landfall in weeks
Citing China's state news agency Xinhua, reports say cyclone Saudel first made landfall twice in Zhejiang province on August 28. It then struck again on Thursday, this time weakened into a tropical storm, making its third landfall in Fujian province. Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Fujian all sit next to one another along China's eastern coast, so the successive strikes from the same system brought sustained, heavy rainfall across the wider region over an extended stretch of days rather than a single storm event.
More than 100 homes collapse in Fujian
Local officials in Fujian said many residents there are also missing following days of continuous downpours, though an exact count has not been confirmed. In Huating town in Putian city, more than 100 houses collapsed entirely under the weight of the flooding. On Thursday afternoon, water overtopped an embankment before the mounting pressure caused it to breach outright, sending floodwater surging into several villages and trapping residents who had nowhere left to go.
Roughly 600,000 evacuated to safety
Given the scale of the danger, authorities launched a large evacuation effort across the province. By Friday night, around 600,000 people had been moved out of at-risk coastal and inland areas in Fujian to safer locations. The disaster comes soon after a major landslide in Nepal partially blocked a river's flow, prompting officials there to issue a high alert as well, a sign that this stretch of Asia has faced back-to-back extreme weather events in recent days.
