Landslide Survivor Found After Almost 3 Days Buried Under Rubble

Almost three days after a cascade of mud and debris engulfed an industrial estate in southern China, leaving at least 75 missing and two dead, rescuers have pulled a survivor from the debris.

Tian Zeming, a 19-year-old migrant worker from Sichuan province, was found at about 3.30am on Wednesday, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.

Just over three hours later, rescue workers in orange and red uniforms managed to hoist him from the scene of the disaster on the outskirts of Shenzhen, a sprawling factory hub in Guangdong province. A white cloth covered the man’s eyes.

Xinhua said Tian, who is from the city of Chongqing, had suffered multiple fractures but was in a stable condition after 67 hours buried in the rubble.

Shortly after news of the rescue broke on Wednesday morning, there were reports that a second man had been found under the debris.

He was less fortunate and did not survive.

Three days after a tide of earth and construction waste swept through the area on Sunday morning, anger is rising over the Shenzhen disaster, the latest calamity to highlight the human cost of China’s breakneck industrialisation.

Initial reports suggest the apparently man-made catastrophe happened when a hillside landfill site, used to dump construction waste, gave way, spewing a powerful sea of dirt down on to the factories, office blocks and workers’ dormitories below.

“They were dumping dirt here day and night,” one man, who gave his name only as Zhang, told the New York Times. “We complained, but the government turned a blind eye.”

More than 30 buildings were completely or partially swallowed up by the landslide. By Wednesday morning the bodies of at least two victims had been found, although the death toll is likely to rise significantly in the coming days.

Many of those missing are reportedly migrant workers from Henan, one of China’s poorest provinces.

As dozens of excavators and about 4,000 rescuers continued to claw through the cinnamon-coloured mud for victims, survivors recounted fleeing for their lives as a tsunami of earth and debris swept towards them.

Zhou Suqing told the South China Morning Post she had lost her husband, Hu Wenhua.

“Dozens of people were trying to run away from the mud, some were lucky enough to be pushed out by the impact of the landslide, but others were buried under the mud,” she said.

“I wanted to communicate the information about where these people were probably buried to the rescue teams, but I had no chance to speak to them.”