ZHOUQU, China — New landslides killed 24 people and left more 24 missing in China's remote northwest as downpours threatened more devastation and made rescue work nearly impossible today in a region where more than 1,100 people have died.

More rain was forecast for flood-ravaged Gansu province in the coming days — up to 3.5 inches was expected today — and the National Weather Center said the threat of more landslides along the Bailong River was "relatively large." But officers with the People's Liberation Army told a press conference in Beijing that the threat from barrier lakes formed by debris blocking the river upstream from the mud-struck villages had been removed.

Tents set up as emergency shelters were flooded, and traumatized victims said the ongoing storms were a frightening reminder of the deluge that brought on last Sunday's disaster in which three villages in Gansu's Zhouqu district were swallowed in waves of mud and rubble-strewn water. Hundreds of homes were completely buried, and the death toll in the northwest flooding stands at 1,144.