Questions mount over failure to prevent China mudslide

The landslide happened on Sunday when a mountain of construction waste material collapsed and flowed into an industrial park in Shenzhen.

About 3000 rescuers are trying to reach dozens of people still missing since the landslide at an industrial estate in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

The man already extracted was 19-year-old Tian Zeming from the southern city of Chongqing, rescued early on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, the confirmed death toll ticked up to two, with a so-far unidentified body being recovered, the local website Shenzhen News said, showing a photo of rescue workers with heads bowed in a moment of silence.

He was in stable condition and taken to the operating room to receive a surgical debridement, said Wang Guangming, president of the hospital.

There could be at least one other survivor, according to state media.

The site should have been closed down in February, but according to local workers, mud and waste had continued to be dumped there, a news portal run by the city government in Shenzhen said.

While no waste was being brought to the Hengtaiyu industrial park, dumping has also stopped at another controversial site in Shenzhen, in the district of Bujiuwo, which opened in 2008 and was due to close three years later.

Chinese rescue teams work, as photographed from above. The landslide toppled buildings and ruptured a gas pipeline, so clearing the site could take weeks, it added.

At the disaster zone, volunteers hoping to help search for bodies said chances were slim for survivors.

The mudslide was caused by the improper storage of waste from construction sites, according to the official newspaper of the Ministry of Land and Resources.

Emergency workers are racing around the clock to find any survivors in the disaster, which occurred when a large river of mud swept over the park and either destroyed or damaged 33 buildings, including 14 factories and three dormitories.

Calls to the company seeking comment went unanswered.

Heavy machinery was raking through the thousands of tonnes of soil and rubble that buried factories and residential buildings in China’s second high-profile industrial disaster in four months. “We detected vital signs several times, but our utmost efforts were in vain”, said Yao Yingzheng, a firefighter who participated in pulling out the first victim.