The death toll from a highway collapse in southeastern China rose to 48 on Thursday, amid a second day of searches in the dangerously mountainous terrain, writes UNN citing AP.
Details
One side of a four-lane highway in Meizhou city collapsed around 2 a.m. local time on Wednesday after a month of heavy rains in Guangdong province. 23 vehicles fell down the steep slope, some of them catching fire. Construction cranes were used to lift the burned and mangled vehicles.
Officials in Meizhou said three more people were unidentified, awaiting DNA testing. As the publication notes, it was not immediately clear if they had died, which would bring the death toll to 51. Another 30 people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The search is still ongoing, said Wang Hui, mayor of Meizhou city. No foreigners have been found among the injured, he said.
The search effort was hampered by rain, and a landslide of earth and gravel from the slope.
Supplement
More than 56 centimeters of rain has fallen in the past four weeks in the county where the highway collapsed, more than four times as much as last year. Some villages in Meizhou were flooded in early April, and more rain has fallen in the city in recent days.
Parts of Guangdong province have seen record rain and flooding as well as hail in the past two weeks. A tornado killed five people in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, during rain and hail last weekend.
The section of highway collapsed on the first day of the five-day May Day holiday, when many Chinese travel at home and abroad.