'I had never witnessed anything so scary', woman says of landslide

Peng Kaiqun had a sense of awe when recalling the landslide that left at least 93 people missing in her home county of Maoxian in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province on Saturday morning.

"I had never witnessed anything so scary that I thought it was the eruption of a volcano," said the 35-year-old woman, whose Lianghuokou village is within a walking distance from Xinmo village, where the landslide took place.

At around 5:38 am on Saturday, Peng said she heard a deafening sound and saw rocks falling from the nearby Fugui Mountain. "Water, mud and rocks were flying more than five meters above ground and found their way into Xinmo at the foot of the mountain," she said.