China continues efforts to reopen road to mudslide-hit Gyirong Port

Rescue teams were working to reopen the final stretch of road into the core area of Gyirong Port in southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region on Saturday, as search and rescue operations continued after a deadly mudslide struck the border area.

A mudslide in Nepal caused extensive damage to the port area on Wednesday, causing heavy casualties and leaving hundreds missing at Gyirong Port in Gyirong County, Xigaze City.

As of 1 a.m. on Saturday, seven people had been killed and 554 others remained missing, while two local villagers had been rescued, according to the region's emergency management department.

Rescue forces continued to advance toward the core area of Gyirong Port on Saturday, laying ropes through difficult terrain to reach key locations for detailed inspections and systematic searches.

Road repairs push deeper into the disaster area With continuous rain swelling the river and increasing the speed of its flow, rescue teams adjusted their approach and focused on reopening the G216 national highway, the only land route to Gyirong Port.

The road has been extensively damaged, with the roadbed along the final kilometer to the port completely washed away.

As the risk from an upstream barrier lake became manageable, rescue and engineering teams stepped up both search operations and road repairs on Saturday.

China Anneng Construction Group deployed more than 20 pieces of specialized machinery to accelerate work on the highway.

Zhong Wenjun, head of China Anneng's Chengdu rescue base, said about 70 personnel were working at the highway repair site.

Around 150 meters of road had been reopened on Saturday morning.

After several days of work by multiple engineering rescue teams, about 2.6 kilometers of the road had been reopened as of Saturday.

The work becomes progressively more demanding as teams progress deeper into the disaster area.

Some sections still retain parts of the original roadbed, while farther ahead the roadbed has been severely washed away, leaving mud and rocks.

On Saturday afternoon, the first batch of steel reinforcement frames sent by the Xizang regional transport authorities reached the site.