The corpse of a child was dug out of the mud and debris, Xinhua news agency said, as rescuers searched for signs of life in Dazhai village in Guizhou province after Monday's landslide, with hope for survivors considered slim.

"The rescue is under way but it's still raining hard and the local terrain is complex, which is affecting the rescue process," Pi Yingfang, a spokeswoman for authorities in Guanling county, told AFP.

"Some of the rescuers have stopped work due to fears of more landslides, but others are still searching for survivors."

Xinhua gave no other details on the dead child.

State television showed rescuers walking on a wide thick trail of mud that appeared to have almost entirely covered houses in its wake, and diggers were sifting through the dirt and rocks.

More than 100,000 cubic metres of mud and rocks, the equivalent of 40 Olympic-size swimming pools, have fallen on the houses, the official People's Daily newspaper said.

The landslide was the latest weather-related disaster to hit China, which has suffered floods and landslides for more than two weeks since summer downpours have pounded parts of the nation's south, east and centre.

So far this month, at least 235 people have died and more than 100 gone missing in rain-related accidents, not including the Guizhou landslide, according to China's civil affairs ministry.

Millions more have had to flee their homes and authorities said Sunday that nearly 69 million people had been affected.

The local rescue headquarters in Guanling said the victims had a "slim" chance of survival, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Villager Cen Chaoyang said he had managed to escape his house when he heard the landslide.

"I called for the others to flee, but it was too late. I saw some people behind me being buried," he was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

Rescuers had to walks five kilometres (three miles) to reach the site, which was initially inaccessible by car, and were forced to halt the search late Monday over fears of more landslides, the official China Daily newspaper said.

The National Meteorological Centre said authorities needed to strengthen inspections of areas where geological disasters could occur in China's rain-soaked south to prevent similar deadly accidents from happening.

This year's floods are among the worst in the southern part of the country since 1998, when more than 3,600 people were killed and over 20 million displaced, Xinhua said.

At least 379 people have died in flooding in China this year, the government said at the weekend, putting economic losses at 82.4 billion yuan (12.1 billion dollars).

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News