Massive Landslides Leave More Than Two Dozen Missing In China

A company based in Shenzhen had also warned of dangers with the site, the New York Times reported.

“Seeing the mud approaching us like waves on the sea, I started running and dared not look back”, said a woman surnamed Wang.

The debris field from the disaster covers a vast area measuring 455,000 square yards.

Immediately after the incident, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Shenzhen city and Guangdong province authorities to conduct search-and-rescue missions, treat the wounded and mollify families as quickly as possible, Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua said.

Shenzhen, which is near Hong Kong, was one of China’s first special economic zones, and saw free-market measures introduced in the 1980s.

The frequency of industrial accidents has raised questions about safety standards after three decades of breakneck growth in the world’s second-largest economy.

The Ministry of Land and Resources said heavy rain soaked a 100-meter tall pile of construction waste and dirt.

The landslide is the fourth major disaster to strike China in a year following a deadly New Year’s Eve stampede in Shanghai, the capsizing of a cruise ship in the Yangtze River and a massive explosion at a chemicals warehouse in Tianjin on the coast near Beijing.

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, Dec. 21, 2015. But the constant demolition of old buildings to make room for new ones has led to unregulated-and often illegal-dumping of construction waste. “Shenzhen has 12 waste sites and they can only hold out until next year”, the official Shenzhen Evening Post, published by the city government, said in October last year. Xinhua said the pipeline was owned by PetroChina, China’s top oil and gas producer, and that the 400-metre-long ruptured pipe “has been emptied” and a temporary pipe will be built. Rescuers have brought four people to safety, three of them suffering minor injuries.

Survivors described escaping before buildings collapsed and were smothered by earth.

At least 33 buildings were buried or destroyed including 14 factories, two office buildings, one canteen, three dormitories and 13 low-rise buildings, Liu Qingsheng, deputy mayor of Shenzhen, told a press conference on Monday morning. Xinhua said the government revised the number of missing to 85 from 91. About 900 people were removed from the area before the landslide happened.