THE Bao’an District People’s Procuratorate on Friday has issued arrest warrants for six people suspected of being responsible for a massive landslide in Guangming New Area last month, Chinese-language newspapers reported yesterday.

    The six people were shareholders and investors in the Hongkan dumpsite in Guangming.

    So far, 26 people have been arrested for the deadly landslide that killed at least 75 people.

    Eleven people were first arrested Dec. 31 last year, 11 days after the landslide took place. Some of the first to be arrested were the legal representative and the vice president of the Yixiang-long Invest and Development Corp., as well as supervisors and people in charge of the Hongkan dumpsite.

    Another five people who were responsible for operating the dumpsite also had arrest warrants issued Jan. 6. A legal representative of a property management company, who was also a deputy from a county’s people’s congress in Jiangxi Province, was arrested nine days after that.

    A few days later, the procuratorate issued arrest warrants for three people who were also responsible for the landslide.

    The Ministry of Land and Natural Resources said earlier that the landslide happened after a hill of waste soil from construction sites collapsed. The pile was very tall with a slope steep enough to make it unstable.

    According to earlier reports, the Yixianglong company was established in 2003 by Longhuamei and two shareholders with a registered capital of 10 million yuan (US$1.54 million). The company was subcontracted to run the dumpsite by Luwei Property Management Co., which originally won the contract from the government. Luwei Property Management Co. was paid 750,000 yuan for the contract in 2013.

    (Zhang Qian)