Han Ximin, Li Jing

    ximhan@126.com

    FOURTEEN people have been rescued and 27 are still missing after a landslide hit an industrial park, burying dozens of buildings yesterday in Guangming New Area in northwestern Shenzhen.

    A nearby section of the West-to-East natural gas pipeline exploded after the landslide. No further details were revealed.

    A preliminary investigation report suggests that illegal disposal at a nearby earth dumpsite caused the landslide.

    President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have called for rescue efforts and urged the local government to act quickly to reduce casualties. The State Council has sent a working group to help coordinate rescue efforts.

    According to a resident surnamed Jiang who runs a computer maintenance store in the neighborhood, the landslide was caused by mud piled up against a 100-meter-tall hill, which has been serving as a dumpsite for construction companies operating in Shenzhen.

    “The mud was piled up as high as nearly 100 meters,” Jiang claimed. “The mudslide was as tall as a three-story building.”

    People had been living in makeshift sheds at the base of the hill. Whether any victims were inside the sheds is unknown as of press time.

    Twenty-two buildings housing 15 companies were buried after the 11:40 a.m. landslide hit the Hengtaiyu Industrial Park in Fenghuang community.

    Some 900 were evacuated as the landslide took about 30 minutes. At least 27 people were missing by 9 p.m. yesterday. It is not known how many people were buried when the accident happened, officials said.

    Rescuers said around 100,000 square meters of land is covered by 6-meter-deep mud.

    Eleven teams totaling 1,500 rescue workers from Shenzhen and nearby cities were continuing to search for survivors.

    By 6:30 p.m. yesterday, 14 people had been rescued, according to the official microblog of the Shenzhen government.

    Shenzhen Party chief Ma Xing-rui and Mayor Xu Qin ended a meeting in Beijing and left for Shenzhen to oversee rescue work. Ma arrived at the accident scene at around 7:45 p.m.

    According to a report on the official microblog of the Southern Metropolis Daily, a grandfather and three grand children, aged between 4 and 9, were buried. The four lived in a corrugated iron shed, with the mother and father rushing home to find their house buried. 

    Rescue firefighters said the affected buildings included factories and residential houses in an urban village adjacent to the industrial park.

    A shop owner living nearby said he heard someone shouting “explosion” at around 11:50 a.m. and he ran outside with a video camera. The video shows heavy dust and buildings being swallowed in the landslide in front of him.

    According to a worker surnamed Tian, people from his company were buried inside the building. Only Tian and his boss ran out of the building in time.

    The landside happened near a gas station, which shut off its pipelines soon after the accident. No gas leaks have been found.

    The gas and power supplies in the park have been cut over safety concerns.

    The injured people were sent to Guangming Central Hospital and Guangming People’s Hospital for treatment. By 4 p.m. Guangming Central Hospital received nine patients, most of them with bone fracture and eight with bruises. Guangming People’s Hospital received five patients.

    Guangming New Area has a population of 110,000. In 2014, the district registered more than 22,000 enterprises and 125 high-tech companies.