At least 20 people died and 24 others remained missing on Tuesday following an avalanche in a remote mountainous area of Yunnan province, southwest China.
The disaster occurred shortly before 6:00 a.m. on Monday in the town of Liangshui, northeastern Yunnan. The avalanche buried regarding 18 homes, according to the Ministry of Emergencies.
More than 1,000 rescuers worked in the snow with negative temperatures to try to find survivors. Two people were rescued on Monday.
The state news agency an average thickness of six meters (20 feet).
Rescuers had to deal with snow, icy roads and freezing temperatures that, according to the forecast, will continue for at least the next three days.
Zhenxiong County is regarding 2,250 kilometers (1,400 mi) southwest of Beijing, and reaches an altitude of up to 2,400 meters (7,900 ft).
Heavy snowfall in many parts of China has caused transportation chaos and endangered the lives of many. Last week, rescuers evacuated tourists from a remote ski resort in the northwest following dozens of avalanches caused by heavy snow left more than 1,000 people trapped for a week in a village in Altay prefecture, in the Xinjiang region, near the Chinese border with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan.
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