One dead, 28 missing caused by landslide in southwest China

A landslide in southwest China's Sichuan Province had left one person dead, 28 missing and two injured as of 11:00 Sunday, local authorities said.

The landslide occurred at 11:50 on Saturday in Jinping Village, Junlian County, Yibin City of Sichuan, burying 10 homes and one production facility.

The Jinping Village lies at the bottom of two herringbone ridges, and the landslide occurred on the western ridge. According to surveying and mapping data, the ridge has a steep slope, with a vertical height difference of 437 meters.

Aerial footage shows that the landslide surface has obvious characteristics of sedimentary rock, which is soft in texture and low in strength.

The unstable geological conditions, along with recent continuous rainfall, triggered the landslide, which is still active. It evolved into a debris flow, resulting in a debris accumulation area approximately 1.2 kilometers long. The landslide is about 10 to 20 meters thick, 100 meters wide, and has accumulated more than 100,000 cubic meters of mud and rocks so far.

Search and rescue operations are being carried out in 10 grid zones. The province has mobilized 949 personnel from the armed police, firefighting, emergency response, transportation, medical, telecommunication, and other forces to carry out or assist the rescue efforts.

Over 200 rescue vehicles, including excavators, fire engines and ambulances, as well as life detectors, search-and-rescue dogs, and radars, have been deployed for on-site rescue operations.

The two rescued individuals, one with critical injuries and the other with minor injuries, are currently being treated at the Junlian County People's Hospital, neither in life-threatening condition.

A total of 360 people in 95 households have been evacuated. Temporary shelters have been set up, with 162 individuals currently resettled on a household basis.

One dead, 28 missing caused by landslide in southwest China

The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.

Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.

The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).

The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.

Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew