At least 127 people have been confirmed dead in rain-triggered mudslides Sunday in a northwest China county, and rescuers are racing against the clock to save some 2,000 others still missing.

More than 96 people have been confirmed dead and some 2,000 others are missing in landslides triggered by torrential rains in northwest China's Zhouqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province, on Aug. 8, 2010 [China.org.cn]

Heavy downpours triggered landslides and mud-rock flows in Zhouqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province, early Sunday morning. By 3 p.m., 76 people were also confirmed injured, said the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

About 45,000 people have been evacuated, according to a statement from the provincial civil affairs department.

As of noon, more than 680 residents had been rescued by local residents. And the water level in the county seat of Chengguan Township had declined by 40 cm, after floodwaters carrying mud and rocks submerged half the town in the small hours on Sunday, said Mao Shengwu, head of the prefecture.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao instructed the government of Gansu Province and other related departments to spare no efforts to save lives. Wen arrived at Zhouqu County at 4:35 p.m.

The China National Committee for Disaster Reduction, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and the Ministry of Civil Affairs have lifted the national disaster relief response level to grade II, the second highest level.

RESCUE EFFORTS

More than 300 homes in Yueyuan Village in the county had been buried. The number of casualties in village were still not known, Mao said.

The mud-rock flow has leveled an area about 5 km long and 500 meters wide in the county seat, and more than 20,000 people have been affected, according to a statement posted on the website of the provincial government.

More than 10,000 people have been evacuated to higher ground, with two temporary settlement centers set up on the playgrounds of two middle schools in the county, according to the prefecture's government.

The local rescue headquarters has also organized 1,000 more rescuers to search for missing people in the area.

Sludge as deep as two meters spread across some major roads in the county. Many trapped residents were waiting for rescuers atop buildings, said a statement from the general office of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China.

A primary school and some governmental offices in the county were damaged, said the statement.

The Bailong River, which runs through the county seat, overflowed and a large body of slow moving water had engulfed Chengguan Township.

"Torrential rains began to fall at around 10 p.m. Saturday. Then there were mudslides and many people became trapped. Now sludge has become the biggest hinderance to rescue operations. It's too thick to walk or drive through," said Diemujiangteng, head of the county.

"Since excavators can't reach the site, we can only use spades and our hands to rescue the buried," said He Youxin, an officer with the Gannan branch of the Gansu Headquarters of Chinese People's Armed Police Force.

His rescue team has saved 23 people and recovered 15 bodies. But, "It's very hard to locate the people washed away by floods. It's hard to say what their chances of survival are," he said.

Armed policemen rescued five locals, including two children and three adults, who were trapped atop a seven-story building, half of which had been washed away by the floodwaters, according to a video clip shot by an armed policeman with his cell phone shown on Chinese Central Television.

The policemen put the children in a type of pack on their backs and brought them down to the ground by using a rope. The adults climbed down on the rope by themselves, it showed.

More than 600 soldiers sent by the PLA Lanzhou Military Area Command have arrived at the county. "We haven't found any trapped people," said Pu Junli, head of a 60-strong advance force.

More armed policemen, fire fighters and PLA soldiers to help with the rescue are bringing heavy machines from Gansu, neighboring Sichuan Province and Beijing.

Small mud-rock flows were still occurring in the county, according to a report from a 10-strong rescue team sent by the fire department of Sichuan police department.

A Xinhua reporter learned from the Gansu Electric Power Corporation that two thirds of county's power was out. And some communications links were also down because of the electricity cuts.

The State Grid corporation has sent 150 people with electricity generators to the site. The first batch of 35 workers arrived at the county seat around 12:40 a.m. and began repairing the power supply facilities.

By 4:14 p.m., power supplies in some parts of Zhouqu County, including the temporary settlement center, hospitals, two middle schools and communications base stations, were resumed.

The roads in the outskirts of Zhouqu County had reopened after they were blocked by the mudslides, according to the provincial administration bureau of highways.

By 3 p.m., the provincial civil affairs department has sent 3,900 tents, about 40,000 boxes of instant noodles and 31,300 boxes of bottled drinking water to the county.

But the county still badly needs 400 tonnes of drinking water and 20 tonnes of instant food, said a spokesman with the prefecture's government.

The county would need 10,000 tonnes of water and 500 tonnes of instant food in the following 25 days, after which life was expected to return to normal, said the spokesman.

WITNESS ACCOUNTS, BARRIER LAKE

Peng Wei, head of the county's fire department said, "I heard the fierce storm around 11:30 p.m. last night, and later I found that a mud-rock flow had hit our residential building. The cars in the yard had all been damaged," Peng added.

"Someone said the fifth floor of my residential building had been submerged. People are busy looking for family members and friends," said Li Tiankui, a resident who lived near the Bailong River.

"Several small landslides have occurred in the valley before, but they didn't arouse much attention," Li said.

Water spewed out the sides of the Bailong River due to debris blocking it and took a different downstream course than usual, engulfing buildings along the riverbank. A total of 19,000 people living in Shawan and Lianghekou townships situated below the lake had been evacuated, Mao said.

The mudslides occurred at around midnight in Zhouqu County, when the residents were asleep, and a clogged lake formed on the Bailong River at around 1 a.m.

The barrier lake is 3 km long, 100 meters wide and 9 meters deep. It contains some 1.5 million cubic meters of water, according to the provincial flood control department.

Two helicopters carrying demolition experts left for the landslide-hit county at 6:30 a.m. Sunday to blow up materials blocking the river's flow, according to the provincial flood relief headquarters.

The downpours had petered out in the county, but the prefecture's meteorological bureau has forecast heavy rains on the upper reach of Bailong River on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Zhouqu County covers 3,010 square km and has a population of 134,700, about 33 percent of which are Tibetans. It is located in the southeast part of the prefecture, the seat of which is about 276 km away from Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu.