Number of missing rises to 80 in China landslide: state media
Pastor Dale Morgan
Number of missing rises to 80 in China landslide: state media*
by Staff Writers
Beijing (AFP) June 6, 2009
At least 80 people were feared buried Friday when part of a mountain
collapsed in a massive landslide in a remote area of southwestern China,
the government and state media said.
The mountainside in Wulong county in Chongqing municipality collapsed
onto an iron ore mine and six houses, according to a report posted on
the Chongqing government website.
Quarry workers, residents and passers by were possibly trapped, official
news agency Xinhua said in a report Friday.
Xinhua said seven of those buried were pulled out alive by rescuers and
sent to hospital by 8.30 pm (1230 GMT), with four in serious condition.
The accident also cut power and telephone lines across a large area, the
Chongqing government report said.
An official from the county's Tiekuang town, who would only give his
surname Zhang, said the toll to this point was only a "preliminary
estimate."
"Telephone communications have been cut, and there is no mobile phone
signal," Zhang told AFP by phone.
Doctors and ambulances from the local hospital rushed to the remote
disaster area, according to the online report, which added that many
landslides had taken place on the mountain in the past.
A nurse at a hospital in Wulong said at least 10 doctors had gone to the
site.
The Chongqing government website said that rescuers had so far recovered
two bodies.
None of the reports indicated what might have caused the landslide.
However, China's mining industry is notoriously dangerous, with mining
operators routinely caught flouting safety rules in the quest to meet
the country's huge demand for coal and various minerals.
Thousands of miners are reported killed in accidents each year, and
excessive mining practices regularly lead to land subsidence, cave-ins
and landslides.
The government in recent years has launched campaigns to shut the
estimated tens of thousands of illegal mines in the country, but
accidents continue to occur.
Last September, 276 people were killed in northern China's Shanxi
province when a mining waste reservoir situated on a mountainside
collapsed, engulfing a village in a sea of mud and rocks.