Death toll 65 in China landslide

BEIJING -- Rescuers found 65 bodies in the wreckage of a nine-story apartment building buried by a landslide in southwestern China, the official Xinhua News Agency said Thursday.\nOnly seven people of an estimated 76 people in the building are known to have escaped the disaster Tuesday evening in the city of Chongqing, Xinhua said.\nHundreds of police and soldiers had cleared away about two-thirds of the rubble by early Thursday and unearthed 65 bodies, it said. There was no indication of anyone found alive in the wreckage.\nEighteen bodies have been claimed by relatives and cremated, Xinhua said.\nLocal officials contacted by telephone refused to provide any details.\nXinhua said the slide probably was trigged by rain that loosened the earth.\nChina has suffered a fatal series of building collapses and other disasters blamed on poor construction standards and lax enforcement of safety rules.\nA survivor quoted by Xinhua described hearing a roar and seeing stones rolling down the staircases of the building.\n"I started to run for life. But just after several steps, I felt something hit my back. When I came to myself, I found I was on the hospital bed," the English-language report quoted the witness, identified as Xia Youming, as saying.\nXinhua said the mayor of Chongqing cut short a business trip and rushed to the scene.