China dam area landslide kills 31*

By Chris Buckley
Reuters
Friday, November 23, 2007; 5:50 AM

BEIJING (Reuters) - The death toll from a landslide near China's massive
Three Gorges Dam soared on Friday when state media revealed the collapse
had crushed a bus, killing 31 people.

The bus was found three days after Tuesday's landslide. Early reports
from the Xinhua news agency had put casualties at the railway tunnel
construction site at one worker killed, one injured and two missing.

The deaths come amid growing local fears and mixed official statements
about land hazards around the rising dam.

The latest report from the scene in Badong county, Hubei province, said
a road near the rail site had also been buried under rocks and earth.

By Friday afternoon, a local government Web site said, rescuers had
removed the first body from the crushed bus, a long-distance coach from
Shanghai which had been crowded with returning migrant workers.

The number of people aboard when the landslide hit was confirmed as 31,
Xinhua quoted local officials as saying.

Thirteen of the victims were from five families, including a
four-month-old boy, his 20-year-old mother and another two one-year-old
boys, according to a partial list of the passengers posted on the Badong
government Web site (www.cjbd.com.cn).

Authorities held out no hope of finding anyone alive. "It's been too
long, and the bus was totally crushed," Zeng Bing, a Badong government
official, told Reuters by telephone.

A manager from the Lichuan Lida Bus Company told Reuters that officials
had been alerted to the missing bus only after relatives and the company
contacted them with their worries.

The landslide struck near a tributary of the 660-km (410-mile) Three
Gorges Dam reservoir, sending down 1,000 cubic meters of rocks and mud
and scaffolding, the Web site said.

GEOLOGICAL THREATS

The disaster appeared to be the latest warning of geological threats
around the dam. Reports have not speculated on whether the slide could
be linked to the dam's rising waters, which are due to peak at 175
meters (574 feet) above sea level next year.

Badong is one of the steep areas along the reservoir where local
residents recently told Reuters they had seen more landslides and
tremors since the water level rose last year, increasing pressure on
brittle slopes.

In September, dam officials warned of potential "environmental
catastrophe" unless erosion and geological instability around the
reservoir were controlled. It was an abrupt departure from the generally
upbeat propaganda about the world's biggest dam project.

Since then they have repeatedly said those threats are being dealt with
and the dam's environment is better than expected.

"There have been no injuries or deaths" due to dam-related landslides,
Tong Chongde, a spokesman for the Three Gorges Project Construction
Committee, told a small news briefing on Thursday. On Friday, Tong said
he had not heard of the bus deaths.

In the rainy summer of 2007, landslides across the dam area killed at
least 13, according to local news reports and the dam's own
environmental agency.

At the Badong rescue site, rescuers used explosives to shatter boulders
blocking access to the crushed bus, the local government said.

The provincial government said grieving families would be cared for, and
ordered officials to "protect social stability," the Badong government
report said.