Huge Landslide Crashes Down Mountainside Onto Roadway in China
A video, featured above, showed the terrifying moment a landslide swept a road in the city of Hanzhong, in China's Shaanxi Province. The footage, filmed on Monday, comes at a time of destructive—and even deadly—weather activity within the region.
The alarming clip appears to have been filmed from inside a vehicle, located on a stretch of highway that had been carved into the side of a mountain. Suddenly, the side of the mountain begins to crumble, and an avalanche of earth comes plummeting down across the road.
Enormous quantities of debris, mud, and trees continue down the side of the hill, blocking the road and ending up out of frame. Luckily, no cars or pedestrians appear to have been trapped in the landslide's path. A pickup truck, parked in front of the camera, can be seen cautiously reversing away from the scene.
Following the incident, the mountain remained unstable and still had several cracks, said Newsflare. As a result, police have reportedly been controlling traffic in the area in case of another landslide.
According to a Monday report from The Straits Times, a Singapore-based newspaper, authorities have been forced to launch an emergency response in Shaanxi—as well as in the neighboring Shanxi—due to the intense weather conditions and rainfall.
Authorities have called for a "level four" emergency response. As the news outlet noted, the country uses a four-tiered emergency system in response to floods, with level one being the "most severe."
The China National Commission for Disaster Reduction and the Ministry of Emergency Management have reportedly sent teams to help mitigate damage in affected areas, noted the news outlet.
The Straits Times also reported that, as of Sunday, 1.75 million people in Shanxi alone had been affected by the flooding, 120,100 of which were evacuated from their homes. On Friday, it was reported that 17,000 houses in Shanxi had collapsed, huge swaths of farmland had flooded, and 60 coal mines were forced to pause their work due to recent rainfall.
There have been at least six fatalities in the province due to flooding, added the Washington Post.
The neighboring province has not been immune to the severe rainfall's effects, either. At least 70,000 people have been displaced due to landslides and flooding in Shaanxi, the same region where the video above was recorded. At least 12 have been killed.
According to the South China Morning Post, the country has seen an increase in heavy downpours since the start of 2021. Per the news outlet, a Sunday report released by the Ministry of Emergency Management revealed that flooding or torrential rain accounted for 70 percent of the 792 people that have died or gone missing in natural disasters between January and September of this year.
