XI'AN, Nov. 24 -- Two drivers were killed when a landslide derailed a freight train in Ankang City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province on Monday afternoon, local authorities said.

The landslide occurred at at around 3 p.m., said an official of the railway bureau of Xi'an, the provincial capital.

Eight carriages came off the tracks.

The accident happened on the Xunyang-Zongxi section of the railway, which runs from central China's Hubei Province to southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

Railway authorities have dispatched rescue teams to the site, but the rescue efforts were hampered by heavy rain.