Death toll jumps to at least 48 in southern China highway collapse

 The death toll climbed to 48 as search efforts continued in southern China on Thursday after a highway section collapsed in a mountainous area, sending more than 20 cars down a steep slope, Associated Press reports.

Officials in the city of Meizhou said three other people were unidentified, pending DNA testing. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had died, which would bring the death toll to 51, the report adds.

The collapsed section of the Meizhou-Dabu Expressway was 17.9 meters in length.

As reported earlier, the collapse, triggered by heavy rain, occurred at around 2:10 a.m. on Wednesday. It was said earlier 36 people were killed, another 30 injured.

Meizhou is one of the areas in southern China's Guangdong that has been badly hit by heavy rain and hail since late April which set off dangerous mudslides, inundated homes and destroyed bridges.