17 students missing after flash floods hit school
Rescuers were today searching for 17 missing students after a torrential flood hit a school in northeast China and swept 92 people to their deaths.
The flash flood hit a school in Shalan, a remote town in China’s far northeastern province of Heilongjiang, claiming the lives of 88 students and four villagers, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
Another 25 people were in hospital, it said.
Some 352 students – all between six and 14 years old – and 31 teachers were in the school when it was hit by a torrent of water from heavy rains gushing down a mountain, the agency said.
Initial reports said 29 people were killed, and the death toll is likely to rise as authorities continue their search for 17 more missing students, Xinhua said. It said forklifts were cleaning out mud and silt while dozens of policemen were checking among the ruins for bodies.
State television showed vehicles slowly driving through flooded streets and rescue workers in orange jumpsuits working with shovels. Footage also showed medics carrying bodies out of the wreckage, while children breathed through respirators in a hospital.
Meanwhile in China’s far south, a fire engulfed the top three floors of a hotel, killing 31 people, state media said.
The fire broke out at noon on Friday at the Huanan Hotel in Shantou, a city in Guangdong province, and swept through the top stories of the four-story building, the reports said.
Early dispatches said five people had died, but rescuers found more bodies when they entered the hotel after putting out the fire, Xinhua said.
Another 15 people were injured, four of them seriously, it said.
It wasn’t clear how many people were in the hotel at the time of the blaze, which took three hours to extinguish.
