Negative Blogs

A member of Japan’s Coast Guard admitted on Wednesday putting a video of a collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese patrol boats on the Internet , a development that could hurt efforts to mend bilateral ties.

Relations between Asia’s biggest economies have chilled since September, when Japan detained the Chinese skipper of the fishing boat after it crashed into Coast Guard ships near disputed isles in the East China Sea.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshito Sengoku, said the leak by a government employee, if true, would be a grave matter, while Prime Minister Naoto Kan conceded he shares responsibility for the incident.

“No matter who did this, it is regrettable that information that was not supposed to become public has been disclosed,” Kan told a parliament panel.

“Various government branches have been involved in this. But as the person in charge of the cabinet, I would naturally be responsible as well.”

Media reports said the coastguard, who leaked the 44-minute video onto the YouTube website, was aged 43. No details were given about his job.

Beijing last week expressed concern to Japan about the video, which appears to show the Chinese boat being steered into the patrol vessels and could harden Japanese public opinion against China.

Asked what Japan would do if China demands an apology for the video leak, Sengoku brushed aside such a possibility.

“Why would China ask for apology? That’s totally unthinkable,” he told a news conference.

The leak added to headaches for Kan’s government, which has seen its support tumbling due in part to voter dissatisfaction with its handling of the territorial dispute, by casting doubt on its ability to keep control of confidential information.

Kan has ordered checks on the handling of such data, Sengoku said.

Japanese media earlier cited investigators as saying the video, which has been widely shown on television, had been posted onto YouTube from an Internet cafe in the western city of Kobe.

Police are planning to arrest the coastguard on suspicion of breaching the duty of confidentiality, media said.

The Chinese skipper was detained over the incident but later released, a move for which Kan has been harshly criticized.

No bilateral meeting between the heads of the two governments has so far been scheduled during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting this weekend in Yokohama, near Tokyo, Kan told the parliamentary committee.

But Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Japan is making effort through diplomatic channels to set up a meeting between Kan and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

By reuters.com

A part of the disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku isles in Japan, Diaoyu in China, is seen in the East China Sea in this aerial view photo taken in October, 2010. A member of Japan's Coast Guard admitted on Wednesday putting a video of a collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese patrol boats on the Internet , a development that could hurt efforts to mend bilateral ties. Relations between Asia's biggest economies have chilled since September, when Japan detained the Chinese skipper of the fishing boat after it crashed into Coast Guard ships near disputed isles in the East China Sea. Credit: Reuters/Kyodo

China has evacuated more than 150,000 people and recalled more than 50,000 fishing boats to port as its southern coast braces for Typhoon Megi, state-run media said Thursday.

More than 150,000 people have fled for safety in Fujian province, the Xinhua news agency said.

Megi, which killed at least 11 people in the Philippines, is expected to reach Guangdong province Saturday, according to the Hong Kong Observatory. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Megi was about 420 kilometers (261 miles) southeast of Hong Kong, according to the observatory.

Officials in China have issued the highest of four warnings, bracing for possible devastation in coastal areas such as Guangdong and Fujian, Xinhua said.

The warning allows local officials six hours to evacuate residents, close schools and airports, and recall vessels that are considered at risk.

Megi may be the strongest typhoon to hit China this year, Xinhua has said.

On Thursday in the Philippines, lawmakers placed the province of Pangasinan under a state of emergency, to help municipalities recover from Megi, which was known in the Philippines as Typhoon Juan.

The typhoon affected an estimated 258,844 Filipinos, leaving thousands homeless.

By edition.cnn.com

Fishing boats sit moored in a typhoon shelter in Hong Kong on October 21, 2010.

For the last several years, one big theme has dominated talk of the future of Asia: as China rises, its neighbors are being inevitably drawn into its orbit, currying favor with the region’s new hegemonic power.

The presumed loser, of course, is the United States, whose wealth and influence is being spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and whose economic troubles have eroded its standing in a more dynamic Asia.

But rising frictions between China and its neighbors in recent weeks over security issues have handed the United States an opportunity to reassert itself — one the Obama administration has been keen to take advantage of.

Washington is leaping into the middle of heated territorial disputes between China and Southeast Asian nations despite stern Chinese warnings that it mind its own business. The United States is carrying out naval exercises with South Korea in order to help Seoul rebuff threats from North Korea even though China is denouncing those exercises, saying that they intrude on areas where the Chinese military operates.

Meanwhile, China’s increasingly tense standoff with Japan over a Chinese fishing trawler captured by Japanese ships in disputed waters is pushing Japan back under the American security umbrella.

The arena for these struggles is shifting this week to a summit meeting of world leaders at the United Nations. Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, has refused to meet with his Japanese counterpart, Naoto Kan, and on Tuesday he threatened Japan with “further action” if it did not unconditionally release the fishing captain.

On Friday, President Obama is expected to meet with Southeast Asian leaders and promise that the United States is willing to help them peacefully settle South China Sea territorial disputes with China.

“The U.S. has been smart,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy who studies security issues in Asia. “It has done well by coming to the assistance of countries in the region.”

“All across the board, China is seeing the atmospherics change tremendously,” he added. “The idea of the China threat, thanks to its own efforts, is being revived.”

Asserting Chinese sovereignty over borderlands in contention — everywhere from Tibet to Taiwan to the South China Sea — has long been the top priority for Chinese nationalists, an obsession that overrides all other concerns. But this complicates China’s attempts to present the country’s rise as a boon for the whole region and creates wedges between China and its neighbors.

Nothing underscores that better than the escalating diplomatic conflict between China and Japan over the detention of the Chinese fishing captain, Zhan Qixiong, by the Japanese authorities, who say the captain rammed two Japanese vessels around the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. The islands are administered by Japan but claimed by both Japan and China.

The current dispute may strengthen the military alliance between the United States and Japan, as did an incident last April when a Chinese helicopter buzzed a Japanese destroyer. Such confrontations tend to remind Japanese officials, who have suggested that they need to refocus their foreign policy on China instead of America, that they rely on the United States to balance an unpredictable China, analysts say.

“Japan will have no choice but to further go into America’s arms, to further beef up the U.S.-Japan alliance and its military power,” said Huang Jing, a scholar of the Chinese military at the National University of Singapore.

In July, Southeast Asian nations, particularly Vietnam, applauded when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that the United States was willing to help mediate a solution to disputes that those nations had with China over the South China Sea, which is rich in oil, natural gas and fish. China insists on dealing with Southeast Asian nations one on one, but Mrs. Clinton said the United States supported multilateral talks. Freedom of navigation in the sea is an American national interest, she said.

President Obama meets on Friday with leaders from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. The Associated Press reported that the participants would issue a joint statement opposing the “use or threat of force by any claimant attempting to enforce disputed claims in the South China Sea.” The statement is clearly aimed at China, which has seized Vietnamese fishing vessels in recent years and detained their crews.

On Tuesday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, criticized any attempt at mediation by the United States. “We firmly oppose any country having nothing to do with the South China Sea issue getting involved in the dispute,” she said at a news conference in Beijing.

China has also been objecting to American plans to hold military exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea, which China claims as its exclusive military operations zone. The United States and South Korea want to send a stern message to North Korea over what Seoul says was the torpedoing last March of a South Korean warship by a North Korean submarine. China’s belligerence only serves to reinforce South Korea’s dependence on the American military.

American officials are increasingly concerned about the modernization of the Chinese Navy and its long-range abilities. In March, a Chinese official told White House officials that the South China Sea was part of China’s “core interest” of sovereignty, similar to Tibet and Taiwan, an American official said in an interview after the visit. American officials also object to China’s telling foreign oil companies in recent years not to work with Vietnam on developing oil fields in the South China Sea.

Some Chinese military leaders and analysts see an American effort to contain China. Feng Zhaokui, a Japan scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said in an article on Tuesday in the Global Times, a populist newspaper, that the United States was trying to “nurture a coalition against China.”

In August, Rear Adm. Yang Yi wrote an editorial for the PLA Daily, published by the Chinese Army, in which he said that on the one hand, Washington “wants China to play a role in regional security issues.”

“On the other hand,” he continued, “it is engaging in an increasingly tight encirclement of China and is constantly challenging China’s core interests.”

Asian countries suspicious of Chinese intentions see Washington as a natural ally. In April, the incident involving the Chinese helicopter and Japanese destroyer spooked many in Japan, making them feel vulnerable at a time when Yukio Hatoyama, then the prime minister, had angered Washington with his pledges to relocate a Marine Corps air base away from Okinawa.

His successor, Mr. Kan, has sought to smooth out ties with Washington and has emphasized that the alliance is the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy.

“Insecurity about China’s presence has served as a wake-up call on the importance of the alliance,” said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor of public policy at the University of Tokyo.

By nytimes.com

Premier Wen Jiabao of China spoke about tensions with Japan during a meeting with representatives of Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans on Tuesday in New York.

China suspended high-level exchanges with Japan on Sunday and promised tough countermeasures after a Japanese court extended the detention of a Chinese captain whose trawler collided with two Japanese coastguard ships.

The spat between Asia’s two largest economies has flared since Japan arrested the captain, accusing him of deliberately striking a patrol ship and obstructing public officers near uninhabited islets in the East China Sea claimed by both sides.

“China demands that Japan immediately release the captain without any preconditions,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement on the ministry’s website (www.mfa.gov.cn), repeating that Beijing viewed the detention as illegal and invalid.

“If Japan acts willfully despite advice to the contrary and insists on making one mistake after another, the Chinese side will take strong countermeasures, and all the consequences should be borne by the Japanese side,” Ma said.

Japan’s decision has “seriously damaged Sino-Japan bilateral exchanges,” Chinese state television added, reading out a separate response from the Foreign Ministry.

China has suspended ministerial and provincial-level bilateral exchanges with Japan, halted talks on increasing flights between the two countries and postponed a meeting about coal with Japan, the report said.

Xinhua news agency added that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya had made “solemn representations” to the Japanese ambassador, Uichiro Niwa, and expressed “strong indignation” over the captain’s detention.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that the trawler captain’s detention, which had been due to expire on Sunday, had been extended until September 29.

The Japanese court could not be reached for comment.

Sino-Japanese ties have long been plagued by feuds over wartime history and rivalry over territory, resources and military intentions, although they had improved after a chill in 2001-2006, as deep economic ties raise the risk from rows.

GAS FIELD FEUD

Japan urged calm and said the captain’s case would be dealt with appropriately according to its domestic laws.

“Regarding individual issues, what is needed is to respond calmly without becoming emotional,” said Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for the Japanese prime minister’s office.

“Japan’s basic stance is that we should seek to create cooperative Sino-Japanese ties based on strategic, mutually beneficial relations,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Takeshi Matsunaga, assistant press secretary for Japan’s foreign ministry, said the unilateral steps that China has taken are “regrettable.”

The Chinese captain, Zhan Qixiong, has remained in custody after a Japanese court approved for the first time on September 10 an extension of his detention. Prosecutors can hold him for up to a total of 20 days while deciding whether to take legal action.

The latest feud over the uninhabited isles — called the Diaoyu islands in China and the Senkaku islands in Japan — has stirred mutual distrust over sovereignty and control of potentially valuable oil and gas reserves.

China has repeatedly demanded Japan free the captain and has shown its anger by cancelling planned talks with Japan over natural gas reserves.

On Saturday, about a hundred protesters in several Chinese cities demanded Japan free the boat captain. Police presence was still heavy at the Japanese embassy in Beijing on Sunday but there were no signs of protests.

The Nikkei business daily reported earlier on Sunday that Japan may start drilling near a gas field in disputed waters of the East China Sea if China does the same.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his foreign minister said Tokyo will take “countervailing steps” if China starts drilling at the Chunxiao gas field to which Beijing recently sent equipment, Nikkei said, adding that Tokyo had looked into possibly taking the case to the international maritime court.

The two countries are at odds over China’s exploration for natural gas in the East China Sea, while Beijing is also involved in territorial feuds with southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea over an area rich in energy and key to shipping.

The Sino-Japanese row centers on where the boundary between the two sides’ exclusive maritime economic zones falls. In 2008, the two countries agreed in principle to solve the feud by jointly developing gas fields.

Estimated net known reserves in the disputed fields are a modest 92 million barrels of oil equivalent, but both sides have pursued the issue because there may be larger hidden reserves.

By Ben Blanchard and Linda Sieg

A Chinese fishing boat is inspected by Japan Coast Guard crew members after it collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels near the disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku isles in Japan and Diaoyu in China, September 7, 2010. Japanese authorities say the Chinese vessel was fishing illegally in their waters and that the collision appeared to have happened while Japanese Coast Guards were chasing the vessel out.

Residents boarded up windows, farmers hurriedly harvested vegetables and tourists vacated hotels in eastern Taiwan on Saturday as the island braced for its first typhoon this season.

China and Taiwan warned that Typhoon Fanapi was strengthening before its expected landfall on Sunday on Taiwan’s eastern coast.

Taiwan issued an alert that heavy rains and mudslides were possible and warned ships to expect dangerous sea conditions. The government ordered fishing boats to return to their docks.

Interior Minister Chiang Yi—hua said authorities would evacuate villagers later Saturday from mountainous regions prone to landslides.

Authorities released water from a reservoir to allow more room for the expected torrential rains to gather, Mr. Chiang said.

Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau said the typhoon was expected to pack winds of between 96 and 110 miles per hour (155 and 177 kph) at landfall.

Officials said tourists vacated hotels in Hualien in eastern Taiwan where Fanapi was expected to land, while residents boarded up windows and piled sandbags at their doors.

In Keelung city in northern Taiwan, fishermen watched the overcast sky after docking their boats.

China’s National Meteorological Centre said Fanapi could be the strongest the country has seen this season. It was expected to hit China’s eastern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian on Sunday night or Monday morning.

Fanapi would be the 11th typhoon to hit China this year. Seasonal flooding in China has been the worst in a decade.

Flooding from Typhoon Morakot killed 700 people in August last year in Taiwan’s worst storm in half a century.

By thehindu.com

Chinese fishermen hurry to unload their catch from a fishing boat in the winds of approaching Typhoon Fanapi in Keelung, northern Taiwan, on Saturday.

China’s foreign minister demanded that Tokyo immediately release the captain of a Chinese fishing boat that collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near disputed islands. But a Japanese court ruled he can be held 10 more days, deepening the diplomatic spat.

Yang Jiechi made the demand Friday to Ambassador Uichrio Niwa after the Japanese envoy was summoned for the third time over the crash.

Hours after Yang’s protest, a Japanese court allowed prosecutors to keep the captain in custody until Sept. 19 before deciding whether to press charges against him, Naha District Court spokesman Yasuhide Yamashiro said.

Late Friday, China announced that it was postponing talks scheduled earlier with Japan on the East China Sea issue in a sign of its anger. The talks, scheduled for mid-September, would have been the second governmental meeting over the territorial disputes in that area.

“The Japanese side has ignored China’s repeated solemn representations and firm opposition, and obstinately decided to put the Chinese captain under the so-called judiciary procedures. China expresses strong discontent and grave protest to the move,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

“Japan will reap as it has sown, if it continues to act recklessly,” she warned.

China has said the confrontation could damage its relations with Japan, showing the sensitivity of the territorial dispute, one of several that trouble China’s ties with its Asian neighbors. As the robust Chinese economy’s demand for resources grows, Beijing’s commercial ships are venturing farther from shore and its more powerful navy is enforcing claims in disputed waters.

The collisions occurred Tuesday after the Chinese fishing boat ignored warnings from the patrol vessels to leave the area and then refused to stop for an inspection, Japan’s coast guard said.

The incident happened off Japan’s Kuba island, just north of disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese. The islands, about 120 miles (190 kilometers) east of Taiwan, are controlled by Japan but are also claimed by China and Taiwan.

Yang told Niwa that captain Zhan Qixiong, his crew and boat had to be freed immediately, a ministry statement said.

In Tokyo, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada told a news conference Friday that it was regrettable that Niwa had been summoned by Yang.

“We are only taking proper steps based on law because there was an alleged obstruction of public duties in our territorial waters,” Okada said.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said it was “absurd, illegal and invalid” for Japan to be applying its domestic laws to the case.

The spat has stirred nationalistic passions in China, with newspapers and activists calling for a tough stand against any threats to China’s territorial claims.

“It is our territory and we’re entitled to exercise sovereignty,” said Sun Peng, a 32-year-old software developer in Shanghai who has campaigned against Japan.

Sun said diplomatic efforts with Japan were a waste of time.

Japan’s coast guard has said Zhan could be released in a few days if he accepts the allegation that he obstructed public duties, resulting in the collision, and pays a fine. If not, he would likely have to stand trial.

The other 14 crew members have remained on the fishing boat, the coast guard said. They cannot land in Japan because they do not have passports but are free to return home if China sends a vessel to pick them up, it said.

Last month, a Chinese survey ship allegedly entered Japan’s disputed exclusive economic zone without prior notification, breaking a previous agreement between the countries. In April, a Chinese helicopter came within 300 feet (90 meters) of a Japanese military monitoring vessel in the vicinity of a Chinese naval exercise.

By SCOTT McDONALD

In this photo released by Japan Coast Guard, a Japan Coast Guard boat, foreground, goes by a Chinese fishing boat which Japan Coast Guard officers are on board for inspection after it collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japanese or Diaoyu in Chinese in the East China Sea, Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2010. The collisions occurred near the islands claimed by both countries after the ship received repeated warnings from Japan's coast guard to move out of the waters, officials said.

Tuesday night’s deadly China plane crash highlights the risks in China’s booming air travel industry. A disproportionate number of flights now have to take off and land at night without proper lighting.

The China plane crash that killed 42 people late Tuesday night was a rare blot on the country’s aviation safety copybook, say experts here. But it highlights the risks of flying in and out of some small regional airports at night, something more airlines are forced to do to meet the demands of China’s booming travel industry.

A domestic Henan Airways passenger jet crashed and burst into flames at a fog-shrouded provincial airport near Yichun in Northeastern China, killing 42 and injuring 54, according to official reports.

It is still not known what caused the accident “but from news reports I deduce that the reason is human error,” says Wang Yanan, deputy editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine. “I think it came down too fast or too steeply.”

It emerged Wednesday that another airline, China Southern, decided last August to avoid night flights into Yichun. A technical note on the airline’s website said that “in principle there should be no night flights at Yichun airport,” citing worries about landing strip lighting, weather conditions, and the surrounding hilly terrain.

The newly built airport, one of a number of such regional facilities springing up all over the country to serve China’s booming travel industry, sits in a forested valley. China will have 244 airports by 2020, up from about 175 today, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC.)

“Over the last few years, because of the high demand and big market, regional aviation has developed very fast,” says Mr. Wang. “The quality of personnel and facilities may not be keeping up.”

Tuesday’s crash, however, was the first major commercial airline accident in China for nearly six years, Wang points out. “I think it is an isolated case,” he adds. “In general aviation safety in China is normal.”

The government credits this to a nationwide crackdown on safety that it ordered in 2004, upgrading aircraft and airports, after 10 serious airplane crashes in four years had given China a notoriously dangerous reputation.

But at new airports a disproportionate number of flights take off and land at night, because airlines serving them can no longer get daytime slots at the busy hubs they fly to and from.

“At night in Northern China it is often cold and wet, so it may be foggy,” Wang points out, suggesting that Yichun airport’s landing lights may have been too weak to see properly in Tuesday night’s fog. “Small airports should install the right sort of equipment to cope with different conditions,” he adds.

The China plane crash that killed 42 people late Tuesday night was a rare blot on the country’s aviation safety copybook, say experts here. But it highlights the risks of flying in and out of some small regional airports at night, something more airlines are forced to do to meet the demands of China’s booming travel industry.

A domestic Henan Airways passenger jet crashed and burst into flames at a fog-shrouded provincial airport near Yichun in Northeastern China, killing 42 and injuring 54, according to official reports.

It is still not known what caused the accident “but from news reports I deduce that the reason is human error,” says Wang Yanan, deputy editor of Aerospace Knowledge magazine. “I think it came down too fast or too steeply.”

It emerged Wednesday that another airline, China Southern, decided last August to avoid night flights into Yichun. A technical note on the airline’s website said that “in principle there should be no night flights at Yichun airport,” citing worries about landing strip lighting, weather conditions, and the surrounding hilly terrain.

The newly built airport, one of a number of such regional facilities springing up all over the country to serve China’s booming travel industry, sits in a forested valley. China will have 244 airports by 2020, up from about 175 today, according to figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC.)

“Over the last few years, because of the high demand and big market, regional aviation has developed very fast,” says Mr. Wang. “The quality of personnel and facilities may not be keeping up.”

Tuesday’s crash, however, was the first major commercial airline accident in China for nearly six years, Wang points out. “I think it is an isolated case,” he adds. “In general aviation safety in China is normal.”

The government credits this to a nationwide crackdown on safety that it ordered in 2004, upgrading aircraft and airports, after 10 serious airplane crashes in four years had given China a notoriously dangerous reputation.

But at new airports a disproportionate number of flights take off and land at night, because airlines serving them can no longer get daytime slots at the busy hubs they fly to and from.

“At night in Northern China it is often cold and wet, so it may be foggy,” Wang points out, suggesting that Yichun airport’s landing lights may have been too weak to see properly in Tuesday night’s fog. “Small airports should install the right sort of equipment to cope with different conditions,” he adds.

By Peter Ford

Chinese paramilitary policemen stand guard near the damaged Henan Airlines plane which has crashed on landing in Yichun in northeast China's Heilongjiang province Wednesday.

Death toll in China landslides rises to 1,117; survivor found in the debris, nearly 4 days on

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 Meteorological 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.

By DAVID WIVELL

Rescue workers search for victims after a mudslide swept into the town of Zhouqu in Gannan prefecture of northwestern China's Gansu province, Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010.

More than 125 are dead, 1,300 missing.

Rescuers armed with little more than shovels searched on Monday for hundreds of people after a torrent of mud engulfed a northwestern Chinese town, tearing down homes, filling the streets with sludge and killing at least 127.

Nearly 1,300 people were missing after heavy rains and landslides created a torrent of mud and floodwaters that buried at least 300 low-rise homes and gouged chunks out of multi-storey concrete homes in Zhouqu County in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province.

The region is dominated by steep and barren hills.

Upstream from the disaster, demolition experts and geologists were working frantically to drain a lake that had built up behind a barrier of landslide blockage.

With more rains forecast for this week, there would be fresh tragedy if the unsecured dam bursts, creating a new mud flow.

Premier Wen Jiabao visited the disaster-hit town on Sunday, to survey the wreckage, promise government help, console survivors, and urge rescuers and engineers to work as hard as possible to save lives and prevent fresh tragedy.

China has deployed all the resources of a powerful central government to battle a string of natural disasters in recent years — flooding, quakes and landslides — winning popular support for both the military and the leadership.

Six thousand troops, police and firefighters worked through the night to dig out survivors, though the slurry of mud that devastated the worst-hit areas dimmed hopes of finding many alive under the wreckage, and complicated rescue efforts.

Over a meter deep in many areas, the mire has made it almost impossible for rescue teams to bring in vital heavy equipment.

More than 1,240 people have been rescued from among the debris or plucked from the top of buildings where they had taken refuge from the onslaught. Over 100 were injured, 29 seriously.

Streams of refugees trekked out of the area, some carrying a few possessions they had managed to salvage, others with a grimmer load — the bodies of loved ones killed by the sludge, the official China Daily newspaper said.

Power lines are down in two-thirds of the county, and water up to 4 meters (13 ft) deep is still surging through some parts of town, the official Xinhua agency said. At least 45,000 people have been evacuated, including the residents of downstream towns thought to be at risk from a fresh mudslide.

The Ministry of Finance has set aside 500 million yuan ($74 million) in emergency funds for the region.

The Agriculture Ministry has also sent protective equipment and disinfectant to an area with large numbers of livestock — there are many nomadic Tibetan herders living there — to help battle possible epidemics caused by dead animals.

By MSNBC

A view of a massive mudslide running through the county-seat town in Zhouqu county in northwest China's Gansu province August 9.

Typhoon Chanthu moved deeper into western China Friday, lashing Guangxi province with high winds and rain before weakening to a tropical storm.

Authorities predicted the storm would bring continued downpours to a region that already is suffering the worst flooding in 10 years.  The official Xinhua news agency said the official toll now is 742 dead and 367 missing after weeks of flooding from storms.

Chanthu was blamed for three deaths, including two killed when 126-kilometer-per-hour winds knocked over a wall in Guangdong province.  In neighboring Hong Kong, officials recovered the body of a man who was swept away late Thursday.

Earlier in Hainan province, authorities suspended all flights in and out, and ordered more than 20,000 fishing boats to return to port and seek shelter.

Xinhua said Chanthu has affected about 1.36 million residents and toppled almost 3,000 houses.  It estimated the economic losses at more than $350 million.

By VOANews

Rescue workers evacuate residents from flooded areas in Jianong town in Leshan in southwest China's Sichuan province, 18 July 2010