Rescuers were looking on Monday for seven people missing in a landslide triggered by torrential rains while employers across much of China were ordered to limit outdoor work due to scorching temperatures as the country struggled with heat, flooding and drought.
Rescuers were looking for survivors of a landslide Saturday that buried a highway construction site and killed at least one person in the central city of Yichang in Hubei province. Five people were injured, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the executive deputy mayor of Yichang, Ye Yang.
Elsewhere, the weather agency issued an orange alert, its second-highest-level warning, for heat across southern China and much of the north and northeast.
Temperatures above 40 C (104 F) were forecast in Beijing, the capital, and across central China to the southeastern coast. Heat above 37 to 39 C (99 to 102 F) was forecast in parts of populous Sichuan province in the southwest. Elsewhere, temperatures above 35 C (95 F) were expected in most of northern China, the rest of Sichuan and much of the south.
The orange alert requires employers to make outdoor work as brief as possible. Despite that, delivery workers for restaurants and online retailers still were working.
Two heat-related deaths were reported earlier in Beijing.