July 15, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424

BEIJING, July 14: Rescue officials on Monday said there was little hope of finding alive any of the 70 people buried under weekend rock and mudslides in two rain-hit mountain areas of central and southwestern China.

There was “no hope” for an estimated 50 people missing after a mudslide engulfed houses by a road near the Dadu river in the Ganzi Tibetan prefecture of the southwestern Sichuan province early Saturday, a disaster relief official said by telephone from Ganzi.

“They are all buried under the mud,” the official said of the missing people.

Seventy local people and tourists were in buildings hit by the mudslide, and the body of a woman from Shangahi had been recovered, the official said.

Four more tourists from Shanghai were among the missing, and at least 10 people survived the disaster, state media said. In the central Hubei province, rescue workers recovered five bodies and 19 people were still missing after a landslide hit a remote village in Shazhenxi township early Sunday, a local official said.

Floods and landslides have killed about 600 people in China this year, with more than two million evacuated to make way for floodwater, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs and state media. Another 51,000 people have suffered flood-related injuries or illnesses.—dpa