The 350 schools in the county where 18 elementary students and an adult were killed in a landslide last week have been ordered to suspend classes and undergo safety checks.

A team of 30 officials from the education bureau and still more from the land and resources department in Yiliang county, Yunnan province, has been assembled and charged with carrying out the inspections.

Emergency workers clean up a landslide site in Yiliang county, Yunnan province, on Saturday. Following a series of earthquakes across the county last month, a landslide struck Yiliang on Thursday, killing 19 people including 18 schoolchildren. [Photo/Xinhua]

"We'll concentrate on structural safety and the arrangement of students and teachers," said Hong Lichang, deputy director of the county’s education bureau.

"The land and resources department will evaluate places near schools, such as rivers and mountains."

Nineteen people were buried at 8:10 am on Thursday in Zhenhe — a village in Yiliang that just last month had been hit by a series of earthquakes — when about 160,000 cubic meters of earth engulfed a school and three homes and blocked a river, forming an artificial lake that was 15 meters wide and 7 meters deep.

An attempt to rescue the victims only resulted in a confirmation that they were dead.

"Some students after the (earlier) earthquakes were still going to classes in portable dwellings, tents and even damaged buildings, which is a dangerous practice and one that should be subjected to further safety evaluations in the next round of inspections," Hong said.

Following the evaluation, every school in the county will receive a safety report stating whether it is allowed to start holding classes again, he said.