Flooding and Landslides Bring Death and Destruction to SW China

Flooding and landslides triggered by heavy rains have left more than a dozen people dead and many more missing in southwestern China.

At least 16 people were killed since Sunday when heavy rain began to inundate the region, causing serious flooding and landslides across 15 provincial divisions, China's state-run news service Xinhua reported.

Two of the dead were found in Sichuan province Wednesday morning after a landslide in the village of Sanxi, near Dujiangyan city, flattened 11 homes, according to Xinhua. At least 21 others in the area are missing.

The BBC reports as many as 40 people in Sichuan were buried in a single landslide. Floodwaters were so intense that buildings collapsed and heavy machinery was washed away. A video posed to BBC shows a man being rescued after the factory he worked at was overcome with floodwater.

"The water level is so high that vehicles, forklifts and excavators have all been washed away," Wei Xiao, another factory worker, told Reuters news agency.

Qiao Jianping, a researcher with the Institute of Mountain and Environment under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told Xinhua that the affected area of the landslide in the Dujiangyan area is 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) long and contains "about 1.5 million cubic meters of mud, rock and debris."

At least three bridges were washed away due to the flooding and high water levels.

The BBC reported rescue workers arriving on the scene of the landslide within hours of the incident saying "everything was already a vast expanse of water."

Rescue operations were underway throughout the day Wednesday, however the torrential weather in Sichuan is not expected to improve for the next 24 hours.

The rains and landslides have affected more than 500,000 people in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, damaged about 300 homes and forced the evacuation of 36,800 people, according to BBC.