Heavy rain, mudslides bring more misery to China

In Longnan, in poor and remote Gansu province, 15 died and more than 10,000 were trapped following torrential rains and landslides, state television said.

More than 1,000 people died in the nearby town of Zhouqu when an avalanche of mud roared down the slopes of a mountain last weekend after unusually strong downpours.

In Sichuan province to the south, mudslides have killed five people and trapped more than 500 others, Xinhua news agency added.

The rains there started late on Thursday in Mianzhu, close to Sichuan provincial capital Chengdu, it said. The area was hard hit during a massive earthquake in 2008 which killed at least 80,000 people.

The mudslides were concentrated in the villages of Qingping and Tianchi, the report said.

"The damage will be massive, and casualties will also be big," one Qingping resident who was reached by telephone told Reuters, though he declined to give his name.

Authorities were still trying to work out exactly how much damage had been caused, Xinhua said, suggesting the death toll may rise. Rescue efforts have already started.

Qingping is surrounded by mountains, where the soil had been made unstable after the 2008 earthquake.

A Sichuan government official told Reuters that Qingping is home to some 6,000 people.

Police had evacuated many people in Qingping once it became clear how heavy the rains were going to be, Xinhua said.

Communication with Qingping had been cut off, and the landslide had "altered the course" of the river which runs through the village, it added.

At least another 1,000 people have died in floods in central, southern and northeast China so far this year.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Huang Yan; Editing by Ken Wills and Miral Fahmy)