Rescue teams in southwestern China used explosives on Monday to blast through heavy boulders hampering efforts to reach 34 people reported missing for three days after a landslide during torrential rain.

Eight people died in Friday's disaster in the county of Penghui some 270 kilometres from the high-rise urban centre of the sprawling municipality of Chongqing.

Monday's blasting operation shattered a massive boulder in television images shown by broadcaster CCTV, which added that the mission had entered a "deep rescue phase".

The effort followed President Xi Jinping's call for scientific search and rescue ⁠operations for the missing as well as a swift investigation into ⁠the cause of the ⁠landslide.

Authorities evacuated more than 1,100 people after the landslide in the county home to about 500,000 people, where many communities cling to steep ⁠hillsides that hug the Wujian river.

In the aftermath, video clips and photographs showed a portion of the collapsed mountainside cascading into the river, cutting off the main street of the narrow, hillside township.

Authorities have sent teams to investigate hidden geological dangers ⁠and monitor the risk of secondary disasters, Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday.

With heavy to torrential rain forecast through Monday across multiple provinces, authorities have called for stronger safeguards in high-risk areas made vulnerable by abundant groundwater, and intensive construction.

Eight small and medium-sized rivers in Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Anhui, and Shanghai are currently above flood warning levels, CCTV said on Monday. (Reuters)


Edited by Aaron Tam