The death toll rose to 337 on Tuesday with more than 1,000 people still missing after floods and landslides engulfed villages in north-western China, dpa reported.
Soldiers and volunteers searched debris for survivors in Zhouqu county, Gansu province, two days after floods carried mud and rubble down a mountain into the Bailong valley.
Officials confirmed 337 death and listed 1,148 people as missing, the official China Daily quoted Chen Jianhua, a local government spokesman, as saying late Monday.
Hospitals were treating 218 injured people, while 41 seriously injured people were transferred to hospitals in the provincial capital of Lanzhou, Chen said.
Troops using excavators and explosives also worked to demolish a barrier of debris blocking the Bailong river above Zhouqu in the hope of averting more floods, reports said.
The blockage had caused a lake to form Sunday that overflowed and sent waves of water down onto villages and the Zhouqu county seat, where several multi-storey buildings were destroyed or buried.
The flood carried an estimated 1.8 million cubic metres of mud and rock into three villages in the Bailong valley, reports said.
Every building in the worst-hit village of Yueyuan was destroyed by a mudslide.
Premier Wen Jiabao travelled to Gansu on Sunday to oversee the rescue work.
Summer floods and landslides have hit many other areas of China since April, killing more than 1,500 people with hundreds still listed as missing.
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