Hundreds feared missing after China mudslide

CHINA: Hundreds of people may be missing after a mudslide triggered the collapse of a reservoir of iron ore waste in northern China, burying houses and sweeping away cars in a wall of thick sludge that killed at least 34 people.

Monday’s landslide, caused by torrential rain, injured 35 people at the Tashan iron ore mine in Shanxi province. More than 1,100 police, firefighters and villagers were hunting for survivors in the rubble, the official Xinhua news agency said.

State radio added in a report on its website that “several hundred” were missing, though it did not provide any additional information. Xinhua said the number of people missing had yet to be determined.

“We’re busy trying to rescue people but it’s very hard work with all the mud and rocks,” said Hu Yanzai, Communist Party secretary of Chongshi, which is next to the villages that were wiped out.

“It’s hard to estimate how many died. It’s all mud and we don’t know how many escaped,” Hu told Reuters by telephone. “I’d estimate at least 100 (dead). It’s a big area ... I don’t know what to feel. I feel numb.”

Xinhua said the flow of mud and rock destroyed a three-storey office building, a market and houses in the valley. “Witnesses said the flow roared down the valley and washed away the market and the houses in a few minutes,” it added.

“It was not a mudslide or rain. It was man-made calamity, not a natural disaster,” he said by telephone. “I went to the site this morning, but it has been blocked.”

Beijing, Tuesday, Reuters