BEIJING: Rescue teams in southwestern China used explosives on Monday to blast through heavy boulders hampering efforts to reach 34 people reported missing for three days after a landslide during torrential rain in an area famed for natural beauty. China is one of the most landslide-prone countries in the world, and eight died in Friday’s disaster in the county of Penghui some 270 km (168 miles) from the high-rise urban center of the sprawling municipality of Chongqing.

An undetermined number of people have been reported trapped under a landslide in southwest China. Rescue efforts are ongoing.

An unknown number of people were buried after a landslide struck a county in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing on Friday, causing residential buildings downhill to…