Zhouqu, August 9
Wails of grief echoed through a northwest Chinese town half-smothered by a landslide two days ago, as relatives washed mud-caked bodies pulled from ruins and desperately hunted for survivors. The death toll from a devastating landslide has risen to 337, with 1,148 people still missing, the official Xinhua agency said late on Monday.

Rescuers and locals with just shovels, hoes and rope spread over more than 2 km of devastated land to burrow into homes engulfed by a torrent of mud and floodwater that swept down from the slopes around Zhouqu in Gansu late on Saturday night.

“There are around 20 of my family members under there,” said Zou Jianglian, who had rushed back from a job in nearby Wuwei town to search for her mother, father, younger brother and other relatives lost since the disaster.

Relatives of the 1,148 people that officials say are still missing in Zhouqu trekked into the disaster zone, some helping with excavation efforts while others watched in desperate hope.

Hopes rose when a 74-year-old woman was found alive on Monday morning, the official Xinhua agency reported. She had been trapped in a fourth floor apartment rather than the low-rise buildings almost obliterated by rocks and sludge. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited the town, still two thirds underwater, for a second day and hollered at rescuers and survivors not to give up, state television news showed.

In the worst hit-village not a single structure was intact, although rescuers said they had not given up hope.

“There are probably eight people buried under this site,” said a soldier, Luo Siyuan, who was helping dig for survivors in Zhouqu town.

“They might not be able to survive after such a long time, but we will not give up on them. It may be a good way to show our respect for the dead.”

Engineers were also blasting a barrier of rocks and mud in an effort to drain an unstable lake upstream from the town of 40,000 residents, when landslides also choked up the Bailong River.

With more rains forecast for this week, there may be fresh disasters if the unsecured natural dam bursts, although thousands of people downstream have already been evacuated as a precaution.

The mass of mud and rocks buried at least 300 low-rise homes, state media reported, while images showed multi-storey concrete buildings toppled or with chunks gouged out.

Vital supplies are now running low, with food, water and tents stuck in vehicles several hundred metres from the site. “We need more food and water. We are now out of power and water supplies,” said Yuan Manhong, a 24-year-old survivor.

Seoul, August 9
North Korea fired an artillery barrage today into waters near the disputed inter-Korean sea border as tensions rose over a South Korean naval exercise and the seizure of one of Seoul’s fishing boats.

Seoul military officials said the North’s batteries fired about 130 shells into the Yellow Sea soon after the South’s navy ended a five-day naval exercise south of the borderline, for which the North had threatened retaliation.

“Our navy was placed on high alert, closely watching the movement of North Korean troops,” a Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The North’s seizure yesterday of a South Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), on the other side of the peninsula, has further inflamed tensions.

Most shells landed on the North Korean side of the borderline but some fell on the southern side, according to a JCS official quoted by Yonhap news agency.

Three minutes after the firing began at 830 GMT, the South’s navy patrol ships warned the North Koreans by radio to stop firing but the warning was ignored, the official said.

South Korea’s largest-ever anti-submarine exercise was a show of force after Seoul accused its neighbour of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March.

The North, which denies staging the attack that killed 46 sailors, had warned of “strong physical retaliation” against the navy drill which it described as a preparation for invasion.

The border drawn by UN forces after the 1950-1953 Korean War was the scene of deadly naval battles in 1999 and 2002 and a firefight last November which left a North Korean boat in flames. Some analysts believe the alleged torpedo attack was in revenge for the November clash.

Earlier today Seoul urged Pyongyang to free the 41-ton squid fishing boat and its crew as soon as possible.

It was unclear whether the weekend seizure was a response to the naval drill, or just an attempt to curb alleged illegal fishing.

The South’s unification ministry said there had been no word from the other side since the Daeseung 55 was detained in or near an exclusive economic zone proclaimed by the North in the Sea of Japan.

The South’s coastguard has said the boat, which was being towed Sunday to the North’s port of Songjin, was presumed to have been in the zone when seized. “The government has urged the North to deal quickly with the case and release our crew members and their boat in accordance with international law and practice,” said unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-Sung. — AFP