Shenzhen survivor rescued after 67 hours under rubble
A young migrant worker has been rescued alive from the rubble of a massive landslide that wiped out an industrial park in southern China Sunday. About 900 people were reportedly evacuated Sunday and thousands have been involved in the rescue efforts.
Nearly 72 hours after being buried alive by a tide of earth and rubble, 19-year-old Tian Zeming was pulled from the soil by emergency workers who have been battling around the clock in the search for survivors. He directed soldiers to an area where he said there was another survivor, but rescuers found another body – bringing the confirmed death toll to two.
Firefighters had to squeeze into a narrow room around Mr Tian and pull debris out by hand, rescuer Zhang Yabin told Xinhua.
Meanwhile, a central government meeting in Beijing overseen by President Xi Jinping that ended yesterday said safety should be the “first priority” in China’s city development and management, Xinhua news agency reported.
The post said people were angry over accidents including the blasts at Tianjin in August, the sinking of a ferry on the Yangtze river in June that killed more than 400, and a stampede in Shanghai last New Year’s Eve that left over 30 dead.
Officials say a giant wet pile of construction waste nearby is what caused the landslide.
An evacuee woman feeds a biscuit to her baby at a shelter set up at a gymnasium near an industrial park hit by landslide in Shenzhen, in south China’s Guangdong province, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015.
The number of missing has frequently been revised down, as people who were thought to be buried have been contacted or located by authorities.
Documents on the website of Guangming New District, where the landslide occurred, show that authorities were aware of problems with the storage and had urged action as early as July.
Residents have said raised questions about why officials did not act to stop the growing mountain of construction waste, which they said they had feared was unsafe.
The landslide was the second major man-made disaster in China in four months.
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. “They’re still carting away the mud”, he said.