Oct. 9 (UPI) -- Authorities said Tuesday that four people have died from a 10-foot-wide sinkhole collapsing the ground beneath them in China.

The ground opened up Sunday afternoon in a district of Dazhou city, Sichuan province, of southwestern China, the South China Morning Post said.

Five people fell into the hole at around 2:30 p.m. local time, according to Yahoo7 News, as one young man was immediately grabbed up by passers-by and the four other people sank into the hole.

Rescuers located the first victim within 10 hours, but he died on the way to the hospital. The second victim was pulled out nine hours later, was also declared dead by paramedics.

CNN identified the other two victims pulled out of the rubble Tuesday as a father and his young son.

It is unclear what caused the sinkhole though they usually form when acidic rainwater dissolves soft rock beneath the soil, creating a void, CNN reported. </s> Two people have died after a sinkhole opened up underneath them on a sidewalk in the Chinese city of Dazhou.

The People's Daily China reports four people fell into the hole, including a child, who was rescued alive.

Footage of the sinkhole swallowing pedestrians has been shared online.

WARNING: Some people may find the content disturbing: </s> Four people died when a massive sinkhole swallowed them in the Chinese city of Dazhou.

The ground ripped open around 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the city in Sichuan Province, leaving a 100-square-foot chasm by the time the earth settled.

Video posted to state-run social media shows the fateful moment, in which several people can be seen casually strolling through a city plaza before the ground opens and they plummet out of view.

Two victims who had recently been married died in state hospitals after being pulled from the pit, and the bodies of two other victims, a father and his son, were taken from the sinkhole Tuesday after being buried under more than 30 feet of rubble — just beyond the reach of excavation equipment, CNN reported.

“The biggest difficulty is that the road surface is thick with a large amount of soil,” fire service official Gao Mingyue said during the search, according to the outlet.

“We had to move excavators to a lower place and we now have two large excavators digging out soils so that we can stand on a lower place and use the long arm excavator to dig deeper.”

More than 40 firefighters were involved in the search and rescue — and some were nearly gobbled up themselves when the sinkhole was disturbed during rescue attempts.

“When we arrived, the caved-in area was not big, which only covered [6½ feet] both in length and depth. But during the rescue process, it collapsed again, causing another [6½-foot] sink,” Gao said. “Firefighters at once evacuated while doing the rescue work.”

Underground infrastructure further hampered rescuers’ efforts, Gao said.

“Given what we found in the hole, cables are crossed in a mess, including two high-tension lines, weak electric wires and gas pipelines,” he said.

Officials have not said what led to the sinkhole, but they are often caused by underground erosion, CNN noted. </s> Eight people were killed after a group of houses collapsed in China on Monday, local authorities said.

The four buildings caved in during the early hours in Wenzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, the Lucheng district government said in a social media posting.

Eight people were found dead and five had been rescued by midday Monday, it said, without giving indications of the numbers missing.

The official Xinhua news agency said rescuers were still verifying the number of people trapped under the debris. It reported earlier on social media an “initial estimate” that more than 20 people had been buried.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation.

Pictures from the scene showed workers in orange suits sifting through a mountain of ruins.

China has seen several building collapses in recent years, with some blamed on low quality construction.

In May, 16 people were reported dead after a residential building in Guizhou province in the southwest collapsed due to landslides.

Two people were killed and 24 injured in April when a storm brought down a wholesale market building in Foshan city, in the southern province of Guangdong. – AFP </s> BEIJING: Eight people died when a group of houses collapsed in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang on Monday, local authorities said.

The four buildings caved in during the early hours in Wenzhou, a prefecture level city of of Zhejiang, the Lucheng district government said in a social media posting.

Eight people were found dead and five had been rescued by midday Monday, it said, without giving indications of the numbers missing.

The official Xinhua news agency said rescuers were still verifying the number of people trapped under the debris. It reported earlier on social media an “initial estimate” that more than 20 people had been buried.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation.

Pictures from the scene showed workers in orange suits sifting through a mountain of ruins.

China has seen several building collapses in recent years, with some blamed on low quality construction. </s> BEIJING (AP) — At least 10 people were killed in the collapse of a group of decrepit homes Monday in eastern China, state media reported.

By Monday evening, 15 people had pulled from the rubble on the outskirts of the city of Wenzhou and rescue efforts were continuing, mainly by hand to avoid harming any survivors, the Xinhua News Agency said.

The cause of the collapses was under investigation, although the reports said the four buildings were built in the 1970s by their farmer owners and were in a highly degraded state. Extra floors had also been added over the years, making them between three and five stories high and further weakening their structures.

Poor construction quality has long been a problem in China, particularly in the countryside and smaller cities. </s> BEIJING — Chinese state media say 10 people have been killed in the collapse of a group of decrepit homes in an eastern region.

The official Xinhua News Agency says that 15 people were pulled from the rubble Monday on the outskirts of the city of Wenzhou and that rescue work is continuing, mainly by hand to avoid harming any survivors.

Reports said the four buildings were built in the 1970s by their farmer owners and were in a highly degraded state. Extra floors had also been added over the years, making them between three and five stories high and further weakening their structures.

Poor construction quality has long been a problem in China, particularly in the countryside and smaller cities. </s> At least 36 people are now known to have died in a landslide that struck a village in southern China.State-run local media also report that 15 people have been missing since a wave of mud buried more than 20 houses in the province of Guizhou

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Jul, 2019 ) :At least 36 people are now known to have died in a landslide that struck a village in southern China .State-run local media also report that 15 people have been missing since a wave of mud buried more than 20 houses in the province of Guizhou.

Chinese authorities told Xinhua news agency that another 40 people had been rescued from the landslide in Shuicheng County, reported by BBC News.

Landslides are common in rural and mountainous areas of China, especially after heavy rain.Several other people have also been killed and thousands have been evacuated from their homes this year as a result of rain and flooding. </s> Eleven dead, 25 trapped in explosion at iron-ore mine in NE China: CCTV

BEIJING: Eleven people were killed and nine injured Tuesday in an explosion at an iron-ore mine in northeast China´s Liaoning province, state media reported.

Twenty-five people are trapped in the mine run by China National Coal Group Co, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

The injured have been rushed to hospital and the municipal government of Benxi, where the accident occurred, has dispatched a rescue team, CCTV said.

Deadly mining accidents are common in China due to lack of safety precautions.

A gas leak killed at least 18 people working in a coal mine in central Hunan province in May last year.

Seventeen other coal miners were killed when a lift used to move workers fell down a shaft in northeastern Heilongjiang province in March 2017.

In December 2016, explosions in two separate coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and in Heilongjiang killed at least 59 people.

Also in 2016, 33 miners were killed in a colliery explosion in October in the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, and in September at least 18 were killed in a mine blast in the northwestern Ningxia region.
A sinkhole in Dazhou, China, kills four people.