ZHOUQU, China – Heavy rains lashed a remote section of northwestern China as the death toll from weekend flooding that triggered massive landslides jumped to 1,117, although the fading hopes of rescuers got a boost late Wednesday when a survivor was found in the debris.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency gave no immediate details on the survivor, found nearly four days after the disaster struck. Earlier Wednesday, a 50-year-old man was rescued who had been trapped in knee-deep mud on the second floor of a hotel, Xinhua said.

Local officials were cited as saying at least 627 people were still missing.

The National Meteorlogical Center warned there was a "relatively large" chance of more landslides in the coming days, as heavier rain was expected, with up to 3 1/2 inches (90 millimeters) forecast for Friday.

Troops and rescue teams joined by traumatized survivors, were increasingly turning to recovering bodies and seeing to the needs of the living. Clean drinking water was a primary concern, with most local sources destroyed or too polluted to use.

Entire communities in Gansu province’s Zhouqu district were swallowed when the debris-choked Bailong River jumped its banks early Sunday, releasing wave after wave of mud and rubble-strewn water. While torrential rains were the direct cause, tree cutting that left the dry hills exposed and the weakening of cliff faces by a massive 2008 earthquake were seen as contributing factors.

Buildings were torn from their foundations, their lower floors blown out by the force of the debris-laden water. Three villages comprising hundreds of households were entirely buried and much of the county seat was submerged.

"In some households, all the people have died," making the counting of the dead more difficult, Zhang Weixing, a Ministry of Civil Affairs official, told a news conference Wednesday.

Crews using explosives and excavators rushed to drain an unstable lake on the Bailong upriver of Zhouqu, fearing more rain could cause a massive breach, bringing more misery to the town.

"The danger of the barrier lake collapsing has been basically eliminated," Jiao Yong, deputy vice minister of the Ministry of Water Resources, told the news conference.

Disinfectant crews in protective suits sprayed chemicals across the ground and over machinery, the smell of death heavy in the air. State media reported numerous cases of dysentery, while infected injuries, a lack of sanitation, clean drinking water and accumulating garbage increased the risk of typhoid, cholera and other diseases.

But the deputy director of the Health Ministry’s emergency office, Zhang Guoxin, said there have been no reports of an epidemic outbreak.

Rescue crews have been largely reliant on hand tools, with heavy equipment either unable to traverse the difficult terrain or mired in mud up to several yards (meters) deep.

But roads reopened Wednesday, allowing in heavy earth-moving equipment and supplies.

At least 45,000 people have evacuated their homes, and the Ministry of Civil Affairs reported the delivery of 30,000 tents to the area, with thousands more on the way. Zhouqu has a population of 134,000, but it wasn’t clear how many needed emergency shelter.

Shen Si, a member of the Tibetan ethnic group native to the area, watched forlornly as troops dug to reach the bodies of her relatives inside their buried home.

"My mother and father in their 60s and my younger brother, all three of them, are buried here in our house still," she said.

Throughout the area, bodies were seen wrapped in blankets and tied to sticks or placed on planks and left on the shattered streets for pickup.

The death toll rose to 1,117, up from 702 reported on Tuesday.

China’s leadership has ordered teams to continue the search for survivors, and the ruling Communist Party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee met Tuesday to discuss rescue and relief work.

"It is now a critical time … we must give the highest prominence to the protection of people’s lives and properties," it said in a statement.

Flooding in China has killed more than 2,000 people this year and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions.

Heavy rain is continuing to cause havoc across southern and central China, triggering landslides which have left dozens of people dead or missing. The death toll from five landslides, in Yunnan, Sichuan and Hunan provinces, rose to 37, with another 40 people missing, Xinhua news agency said.
 

Elsewhere, villagers were evacuated as reservoirs overflowed and troops blew up a dyke to prevent further flooding. China experiences seasonal rains but they have been severe this year. Meteorologists say more rain is expected in central and southern China, potentially exacerbating flood problems. In worst-hit Xiaohe, in Yunnan province, 13 people were confirmed dead after the side of a mountain collapsed before dawn on Tuesday, burying houses. 32 others were missing, a local government spokesman said. Images from the scene showed overturned cars and toppled houses in a landscape strewn with rocks and mud. Relief supplies were being sent to the area, state media said. 

 Landslides also hit rural communities in Sichuan and Hunan, killing a total of 24 people. Flooding has also affected vast areas. In Jiangxi province, 10,000 people were evacuated from villages in the north after rain triggered flashfloods and caused three reservoirs to overflow. In Anhui province, troops blew up part of a dyke on a swollen branch of the Yangtze to prevent floodwaters flowing into riverside villages. But there was some good news. Officials said troops had finished digging a drainage channel from an overflowing reservoir in Qinghai and the water level was beginning to subside. More than 10,000 people had been evacuated from the area, and there were fears that flooding could knock out power in the nearby city of Golmud. 

At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more are missing after a series of landslides in south-west China, state media says. The landslides, which were triggered by days of heavy rain, struck three rural communities in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces.

Four people were killed and 42 others were missing after one landslide in Xiaohe in Yunnan’s Zhaotong city. In Sichuan, two separate landslides left 13 people dead and two missing. Meanwhile further to the west in Qinghai province, 10,000 people have been evacuated from the area around an overflowing reservoir. Teams are trying to dig a channel to drain the reservoir, which has been filled far beyond capacity by recent heavy rain. It is the latest in a spate of weather-related incidents to hit China. Although seasonal, the rains are particularly heavy this year and disruption is severe. At least 43 people had died and 18 were missing after heavy rains along the Yangtze River in central and eastern China since 8 July, state media said. In Xiaohe in Yunnan, an official said that the side of a mountain crashed down on houses.

“The township is located in a river valley surrounded by mountains, people were buried in their homes,” the government official, who asked not to be named, told AFP news agency.

The other two landslides struck Yandai village in Garze and Sima village in Luzhou city. Search teams were working at all three sites, Xinhua news agency said, and relief supplies had been sent to Xiaohe. In Qinghai, soldiers were using bulldozers to cut a channel to drain water from the Wenquan reservoir, Xinhua reported. If it bursts, the reservoir could damage the nearby Qinghai-Tibet railway, along with the city of Golmud’s power and water plants, the agency said. Some parts of the city are reportedly already under 2m of water. Xinhua said the soldiers hoped to start draining the reservoir within the day.