AlQa'dah 20, 1433, Oct 6, 2012, SPA - Persistent rain was the primary cause of a mudslide that killed 18 elementary students and one villager in southwestern China, AP quoted the official Xinhua News Agency as saying today. All 18 elementary school students buried in a landslide were confirmed dead Friday, while one other person also died after a hillside collapsed and smothered part of a village in mountainous southwestern China. Xinhua said that it had rained continuously in the region since Sept. 1 and that when the mudslide occurred, the accumulated precipitation was more than 297 millimeters (11.7 inches), three times the normal level from previous years,. The hillside used for farming was steeply sloped and had loose soil saturated with rainwater, which triggered the mudslide, said Xinhua, quoting experts from an ad-hoc investigative group. The Tiantou Elementary School was buried Thursday when the hillside collapsed in Zhenhe, a village in Yunnan province, the Yiliang County government said on its website.
