Beijing - The death toll in mudslide that buried a market
and several buildings in the northern Chinese province Shanxi rose to
178, the state-run Xinhua news agency Saturday quoted officials as
saying.
Five days after the mudslide, rescue efforts by thousands of
volunteers continued but hopes of finding survivors were fading, as
exact casualty numbers remained unclear.
Officials said the mud would be cleared off the ground by Sunday,
but rescuers encountered difficulties clearing the sludge from two
ravines.
Heavy rain caused a dam at a waste reservoir downstream of an
illegally operating iron mine to burst on Monday. About 268,000 cubic
metres of mud covered an area of 30 hectares, destroying a market, an
office building and several houses.
'My brothers' bodies were recovered. But a sister-in-law was still
missing,' Wang Jungang, a resident, told Xinhua.
Gao Ai and her husband witnessed the mudflow. 'I heard something
roar outside. I thought it was an earthquake. We rushed out of the
house and held a tree. We saw many people swallowed by the mud,' she
said.
China's government set up an accident investigation team and
promised harsh punishment for those responsible for the burst dam at
the Tashan mine near the town Linfen.
Police detained 13 people deemed accountable, among them the mine
management.
Locals accused the mine operators of being aware of the dangers of
the dam, but said no one dared to blow the whistle 'because the boss
of the mine was so rich that he could settle everything with money,'
one resident was quoted as saying.
'Every time it is the same - when a large number of officials were
sacked because of an accident, the new ones continue to make the same
mistakes,' Zhang Jiping added.
The area around Tashan has several iron ore mines that employ many
migrant workers from Shanxi and other provinces, making it difficult
for local officials to identify the victims of the mudslide, reports
said.
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