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Number of missing rises to 80 in China landslide: state media
Beijing (AFP) June 5, 2009 At least 80 people were feared buried Friday when part of a mountain collapsed in a massive landslide in a remote area of southwestern China, the government and state media said. The mountainside in Wulong county in Chongqing municipality collapsed onto an iron ore mine and six houses, according to a report posted on the Chongqing government website. Quarry workers, residents and passers by were possibly trapped, official news agency Xinhua said in a report Friday. Xinhua said seven of those buried were pulled out alive by rescuers and sent to hospital by 8.30 pm (1230 GMT), with four in serious condition. The accident also cut power and telephone lines across a large area, the Chongqing government report said. An official from the county's Tiekuang town, who would only give his surname Zhang, said the toll to this point was only a "preliminary estimate." "Telephone communications have been cut, and there is no mobile phone signal," Zhang told AFP by phone. Doctors and ambulances from the local hospital rushed to the remote disaster area, according to the online report, which added that many landslides had taken place on the mountain in the past. A nurse at a hospital in Wulong said at least 10 doctors had gone to the site. The Chongqing government website said that rescuers had so far recovered two bodies. None of the reports indicated what might have caused the landslide. However, China's mining industry is notoriously dangerous, with mining operators routinely caught flouting safety rules in the quest to meet the country's huge demand for coal and various minerals. Thousands of miners are reported killed in accidents each year, and excessive mining practices regularly lead to land subsidence, cave-ins and landslides. The government in recent years has launched campaigns to shut the estimated tens of thousands of illegal mines in the country, but accidents continue to occur. Last September, 276 people were killed in northern China's Shanxi province when a mining waste reservoir situated on a mountainside collapsed, engulfing a village in a sea of mud and rocks. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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