Death toll in China landslides reaches 1,117

ZHOUQU, China - Heavy rains lashed a remote section of northwestern China on Wednesday as the death toll from weekend flooding that triggered massive landslides jumped to 1,117 and the hope of finding more survivors faded.

At least 627 people were still missing, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported, citing local officials.

The National Meteorological Center warned there was a "relatively large" chance of more landslides in the coming days, as the rain was expected to grow heavier, with up to 3 1/2 inches forecast for Friday.

The chances of finding more survivors were falling by the hour, although on Wednesday soldiers rescued a 50-year-old man who had been trapped in knee-deep mud on the second floor of a hotel, Xinhua reported.

But troops and rescue teams, joined by traumatized survivors, were turning to recovering bodies and seeing to the needs of the living. Clean drinking water was a primary concern, with most local sources destroyed or too polluted to use.

Entire communities in Gansu province's Zhouqu district were swallowed up when the debris-choked Bailong River jumped its banks Sunday, releasing wave after wave of mud and rubble-strewn water.

While torrential rains were the direct cause, tree cutting that left the dry hills exposed and the weakening of cliff faces by a massive 2008 earthquake were seen as contributing factors.

Buildings were torn from their foundations, the lower floors blown out by the force of the debris-laden water. Three villages with hundreds of households were entirely buried.

"In some households, all the people have died," making the counting of the dead more difficult, Zhang Weixing, a Ministry of Civil Affairs official, said.

Crews using explosives and excavators rushed to drain an unstable lake on the Bailong upriver of Zhouqu, fearing more rain could cause a massive breach.

Disinfectant crews in protective suits sprayed chemicals across the ground and over machinery, the smell of death heavy in the air.

Shen Si, a member of the Tibetan ethnic group native to the area, watched forlornly as troops dug to reach the bodies of her relatives inside their buried home.

"My mother and father in their 60s and my younger brother, all three of them, are buried here in our house still," she said.