Landslide halts Yangtze River cruise

Updated: 2011-10-22 17:32

(Xinhua)

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CHONGQING - A landslide in southwest China's Chongqing municipality blocked part of the Yangtze River's navigation route Friday, forcing the cancellation of a river cruise for multitudes of tourists, local authorities said Saturday.

The landslide happened at around 7 am Friday in Liangping township of Wushan county, said an officer with Chongqing's armed police headquarters who joined the river cleanup and helped evacuate tourists.

Although there were no casualties, the officer said cruise and ferry services from Wushan to Yichang, where the landmark Three Gorges Dam is located in the central Hubei province, were canceled, and there is no timetable as to when the route would reopen.

The county government sent a fleet of buses to transport tourists, all of whom were evacuated as of Saturday afternoon, he said.

"We were woken up and ushered off the ship at 4 am Friday," said an Internet user surnamed "beijingshaniuer" on Sina Weibo, a popular Twitter-like microblogging service. "We then spent nine hours on a bus to Yichang. It was drizzling the entire time."

A cruise along the Yangtze River remains trendy in China, particularly in spring and fall. A downstream cruise from Chongqing to Yichang takes four days, whereas the upstream cruise normally takes five days.