Overlooked safety risks added to landslide in China, reports say

In this photo taken from a drone mounted camera, rescue workers search for survivors in the aftermath of a landslide in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province Monday Dec. 21, 2015. The body recovered Tuesday morning was the first confirmed death.

The multi-storey buildings toppled within seconds after the mudslide smashed into them in the industrial park in Shenzhen’s Guangming New District.

“The landslide mass is too loose and aquiferous”, said Liu Guonan, a researcher with the China Academy of Railway Sciences, who participated in the rescue.

Rescuers using cutting gear were close yesterday evening to reaching the first floor of a buried office building but were “racing against time”, the official Xinhua news agency reported without giving details of the life signs.

The initial landslide sparked an explosion in a gas pipeline owned by PetroChina, the country’s top oil and gas producer.

This footage shows the moment one of the buildings collapses.

The State Council has dispatched a team of senior officials and experts to the city to oversee and help rescue work. On Sunday, Xi, now president, ordered officials to “make every effort to reduce the numbers of casualties”.

“I saw red earth and mud running towards the company building”, one local worker was quoted by Xinhua as saying. “We just jumped off the building”, he says.

“We didn’t hear that this area was unsafe”, she added.

“I don’t think there will be a chance (to save anybody), because it has been some time (since the landslide), and it is dirt and sand”, said one woman who gave her name as Qin.

Some relatives said they did not dare leave the site in case they were prevented from returning because of the heavy police presence.

The ministry said large amount of soil and waste from the Hongao construction site was dumped there.

Industrial accidents are common in China, with safety regulations often overlooked due to corruption.

State television CCTV reported massive unplanned quarrying of the nearby mountains followed by heavy excavation of soil for construction resulting the hills crumbling letting a wave of mud engulfing the area.

With a huge amount of construction waste being produced and limited land resources, it has become a problem for Shenzhen to find places to dump the waste.

A comment on the website of Caixin, a Chinese business and current affairs magazine, said: “We thought that this was another natural disaster, caused by soil erosion and many days of rain”.