91 missing after massive landslide in southern China

Rescuers use a sniffer dog as they search for survivors among collapsed buildings in in Shenzhen in south China’s Guangdong province late Sunday.

Rescuers are racing to save victims of a huge waste landslide, which left at least 85 people missing in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, after signs of life were detected beneath the mud. Ten doctors from Guangzhou and Beijing are also on hand. Seven people were rescued. But when we got back around 11:40 a.m., our house had been buried.

At least 16 people, including children, have been hospitalised and are in a stable condition.

The 33 damaged or collapsed buildings included 14 factories, two office buildings, one cafeteria, three dormitories and 13 sheds or workshops, Shenzhen deputy mayor Liu Qingsheng said.

Xinhua said the pipeline was owned by PetroChina, China’s top oil and gas producer, that the 400-meter-long ruptured pipe “has been emptied” and a temporary pipe will be built.

“There are some workers we can’t get in touch with, so I’m pretty sure that the death toll is going to rise”, Chen said.

Such dump sites were often forced through despite opposition by residents, media reports said.

They used cutting machines to dismantle the concrete structure after a large pit was dug.

Posts on the microblog said mud had thoroughly infused numerous buildings, leaving the “room of survival extremely small”.

This is the terrifying moment a four storey building is reduced to rubble in just a matter of seconds after being hit by a powerful landslide. It is the first time he has seen a landslide on such scale in his 30 years of work.

State television showed devastation in Shenzhen, with bits of broken buildings sticking up from heaps of mud stretching out over the industrial park. “As I ran out of the village with another youth, I heard a large explosion”, The Guardian quotes one man who apparently escaped the landslide. “One worker attempted to take away his motorcycle, only to be buried by the debris”.

An eyewitness surnamed Chen said some of his colleagues have been missing since the mudslide struck.

“Seeing the scene now, of course I feel sad”, said Wen Yanchang, 28, who was amidst a group of around 100 people watching construction trucks start clearing the landslide. Its exact cause is yet to be known.

Provincial authorities of Guangdong have sent in teams to investigate the matter.

For the past three decades, millions of migrant workers from around China, including many of my relatives, have flocked there to pursue jobs and opportunities unavailable at home.

Shenzhen media has reported several times in the past few years that companies were illegally dumping construction waste as the legal dumps were all full. The landslide occurred as party leaders met in the capital for a key conference on improving urban planning and management.