State media reported that at least 27 people have been declared missing, as rescue teams are looking for survivors and releasing people trapped under gravel. Eyewitnesses and the Chinese authorities have given conflicting accounts of the cause of the landslide, while Chinese netizens lament the latest disaster to strike China this year.
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“The site is quite narrow and located on a slope, so it’s very hard for vehicles to enter”, said Ao Zhuoqian with Shenzhen’s fire control department.
It was unclear whether there had been any fatalities and Xinhua did not elaborate on the 59 people it said were missing.
A woman surnamed Hu told the Shenzhen Evening News she saw her father buried by earth in his own truck.
It happened at an industrial park in the major Chinese city of Shenzhen, and at least two of the buildings that were affected were workers’ dorms.
The state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported that there was a residential area next to the industrial zone. He said more than 900 people had been evacuated.
More than 1,500 firefighters and police are engaged in rescue efforts, the district government said.
Xi ordered Guangdong and Shenzhen authorities to do everything possible to minimise casualties, treat the injured and comfort the family members of the victims.
China’s cabinet has sent a working group to Shenzhen to help coordinate rescue efforts.
Xinhua said an area of more than 60,000 square meters (650,000 square feet) was covered with up to 6 meters (20 feet) of mud, according to geological experts at the site.
An employee with Liuxu Technology Co., which is in the park, told Xinhua that power went out abruptly around noon.
“I saw red earth and mud running towards the company building”, one local worker said.
Posts on the microblog said mud had thoroughly infused numerous buildings, leaving the “room of survival extremely small”.
Premier Li Keqiang ordered an official investigation into the disaster in the southern city of Shenzhen, which comes four months after huge chemical blasts at the northern port of Tianjin killed more than 160 people.
The soil had been illegally stored in a pile 100 metres high at an old quarry site and turned to mud during heavy rain, the state-run Global Times reported.
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“(The buildings) have all collapsed, really, they have all collapsed”, an eyewitness was heard saying in a 48-second video of the incident.
