Death toll jumps to at least 48 as the search continues in southern China highway collapse

The death toll has risen to 48 after a section of a major road collapsed in a mountainous region of south-western China, sending more than 20 cars down a steep slope.

Officials in the city of Meizhou said on Thursday morning UK time that three other people were still to be identified.

Another 30 people suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the incident.

The collapse followed a month of heavy rains in a mountainous part of Guangdong province.

Vehicles fell down the slope and sent up flames as they caught fire.

The search was still ongoing, Meizhou city Mayor Wang Hui said at a late-afternoon news conference. No foreigners have been found among the victims, he said.

Search work has been hampered by rain and land and gravel sliding down the slope. The disaster left a curving earth-coloured gash in the otherwise verdant forest landscape.

Wen Yongdeng, the Communist Party secretary for the Meizhou emergency management bureau, said: "Because some of the vehicles involved caught fire, the difficulty of the rescue operation has increased.

"Most of the vehicles were buried in soil during the collapse process, with a large volume of soil covering them."

He added that the prolonged heavy rainfall has saturated soil in the area, "making it prone to secondary disasters during the rescue process".