Rescuers have found 27 more bodies, many of them children, after a flash flood swept through a packed Chinese primary school two days ago, killing at least 91 people, state media said yesterday.

The toll could rise further and local hospital officials said an unknown number of people were still missing after the wall of water and debris smashed into the school on Friday near Ning’an, in northeast Heilongjiang province.

Of the dead, 87 were primary school students and four were adult villagers, the official Xinhua news agency said, adding that more than two dozen people were still in hospital. “But those people who have been hospitalised are definitely out of danger. We are trying our best to treat them,” said one official, who declined to be identified.

The flooding, triggered by torrential rain, caused damage in seven villages near Ning’an city, knocking down 55 houses and devastating large areas of farmland, Xinhua said.

Newspapers carried photographs showing the school half-buried by mud and water. Television footage portrayed brick buildings in the area with walls washed away and fields ravaged by floods.

Heilongjiang Governor Zhang Zuoji had travelled to the site, about 450 km from the provincial capital of Harbin, to help coordinate a rescue and relief force of 1,400 people, the agency said.

Poor communications and a chaotic situation meant the scale of the tragedy became apparent only slowly, with the death toll gradually climbing from the 29 intially reported on Friday night.

Two metres deep

“The bodies of some students were taken home by parents that day, and it wasn’t until the government began an official tally that they were brought to the morgue. Therefore, the number of dead went up quite a lot in several days,” Xinhua quoted local flood control spokesman Wang Tongtang as saying.

The floodwaters had swelled to a depth of two metres as they swept through the school on Friday afternoon. More than 350 children and dozens of teachers were inside at the time.

China suffers widespread flooding every year, causing huge loss of life. Earlier this week, days of heavy rains in southern China killed more than 200 and destroyed nearly 138,000 homes.

State media have said that more flooding is likely with heavy downpours predicted for northern and southern China in coming days and several rivers swollen to dangerous levels.

On Saturday, Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, who also heads the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, visited key flood control stations on the Yangtze River, urging them to minimise losses caused by floods and droughts.

Scott HILLIS