Dozens Missing as a Landslide Topples Buildings in South China

Rescue workers are searching for survivors after a massive landslide buried an entire industrial park in China.

China’s Ministry of Land and Resources said that the reason for the landslide was that a steep man-made mountain of dirt, cement chunks and other construction waste had been piled up against a 330-foot-high hill over the past two years.

About 900 people were evacuated to temporary settlements, but at least 16, including a 7-year-old child, needed hospital treatment.

Various media reports indicated that the local government had possessed prior knowledge of the safety hazard of the dumpsite, but the document on the local government site, referred to by earlier media coverage, is suspected to have since been deleted.

Emergency services search a collapsed building after the landslide buried dozens of buildings.

“The mud had been building up for a few years”, said Han Bin, who lives by the site and witnessed the wall of mud slide towards the buildings.

In November, at least 25 people were killed in a landslide in China’s Zhejiang province. The debris spilled over an area of 380,000 square meters (4 million square feet) and destroyed some 33 buildings, including three workers’ dormitories and 14 factories.

Locals told the media that they had long seen the pile of construction waste as a danger.

“If the government had taken proper measures in the first place, we would not have had this problem”, said Chen Chengli.

“Heavy rains and a collapse of a mountain are natural disasters, but this wasn’t a natural disaster, this was man-made”, Yi said.

“The rescue is extremely hard with mud and silt filling up the excavation”, said Cui Bo, a firefighter from Guangdong.

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“We didn’t realise this could happen”.

A section of a major natural gas pipeline burst during the landslide, cutting off supplies to neighboring Hong Kong. “The government has promised to compensate our losses”, said Mr. Liu, who oversees Wance’s overseas sales.

Prime Minister Li Keqiang has ordered a public investigation into Sunday’s landslide.

The State Council, or cabinet, sent a working group to coordinate rescue efforts, which involved nearly 100 fire trucks plus sniffer dogs, drones and other equipment.

The frequency of industrial accidents has raised questions about safety standards after three decades of breakneck growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Geysers of debris exploded into the air as the mud swept through the city. A four-day smog red alert continued in Beijing on Monday, forcing schools to close, factories to curtail production and half the city’s cars off the roads.