Satuk Buğra Kutlugün
23 December 2015•Update: 27 December 2015
BEIJING
Chinese teams have pulled a survivor out of rubble where he had been trapped for more than two-and-a-half days following a landslide of mud and construction waste that buried dozens of building at a southern industrial park.
The 19-year-old, Tian Zeming, was rescued after armed police labored for more than five hours early Wednesday morning to free him from the wreckage of one of 33 collapsed buildings in Shenzhen city, state media reported.
The victim, who is in stable condition at the Guangming New District Central Hospital, was among 76 people previously reported missing after a steep hill of mud and construction waste gave way Sunday.
The institution’s president Wang Guangming told Xinhua that Tian would undergo surgical debridement to remove debris from his ankles as part of efforts to save his foot.
Zhang Yabin, an armed police who was part of the rescue, said oxygen and intravenous infusion had been supplied to Tian before he was removed from the rubble.
He added that firefighters were forced to squeeze into a narrow room that had collapsed around Tian and to create an opening by hand.
A person near Tian at the site was pronounced dead by medical experts, bringing the confirmed death toll to two.
On Wednesday, China's cabinet established a team, headed by Minister of Land and Resources Jiang Daming, to investigate the landslide.
Its members include officials from the ministries of public security, supervision, environmental protection and housing and urban-rural development as well as the work safety bureau, a trade unions bloc and local authorities.
Thousands of rescuers have been searching for victims at the site of the landslide, which spread across 380,000 square meters (454,500 square yards) with the pile measuring 10-meters deep in some areas.
The deputy general manager of a factory for automatic industrial equipment had earlier told the China Daily that employees had escaped to safety at the time.
"Earth was piled up on the hill without any reinforcement measures," said Gao Zhen, adding that factories had been busy with production for February’s Spring Festival.
An unnamed worker remembered the moment, telling the Daily, “suddenly, the lights in our factory went out, and we all ran out to see what had happened… We saw the landslide. ... It had engulfed power lines, and there was also red smoke."
