Shenzhen landslide: 59 still missing in disaster that collapsed 22 buildings
Number of casualties still unknown after jets of black m&d shoot out of the earth
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 20 December, 2015, 4:38pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 20 December, 2015, 11:55pm
Jun Mai
[email protected]

Rescuers work into the night at the landslide site that collapsed 22 buildings Sunday in Shenzhen. Photo: Xinhua
Dozens of people were missing in Shenzhen on Sunday after a massive landslide buried more than 20 buildings in an industrial park on the outskirts of the Guangdong city shortly before noon.
The landslide covered more than 100,000 square metres of the Hengtaiyu Industrial Park in Guangming New District. A nearby section of the arterial West-East Gas Pipeline exploded, state-run China Central Television reported.
Local government officials said three people were injured and 59 were reported missing by 11pm Sunday. Police received the first report of the landslide at 11.40am.
Footage of the scene showed m&d shooting up like a fountain from beneath a hill.
Residents suggested that illegal dumping of construction waste, which they said had been rife over the last few years, could have been a factor.
The owner of a beverage company in the zone said m&d had been dumped repeatedly next to the industrial park over the past two years.
“Residents have complained about the problem for a long time, but it has not been resolved,” the company owner told the South China Morning Post.
[video=youtube;fQokWfO97BE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQokWfO97BE[/video]
The Shenzhen Special Zone Daily quoted an employee at the zone’s safety inspection department as saying the landslide was caused by a m&d spill at the illegal dump.
Wang Zhenxin, former chief engineer with the Shanghai Metro Construction Corporation, said the disaster was the result of instability in the m&d pile.
“The landslide is not from a natural mountain but a huge pile of m&d,” Wang told the Post. “When one side of the pile is overloaded and the pressure builds up, it pushes the m&d on the other side and it spills over.”
Wang said such spillover is more likely in south China, where the soil was wetter and less cohesive. Rainfall is not needed to trigger such a spill, he said.

Rescue efforts include firefighters, police and health workers. Photo: Xinhua
The Beijing Youth Daily, quoted a resident as saying loose soil and waste from construction sites had been dumped next to the industrial park over the past two years and piled up against a 100-metre-high hill.
Another resident working in a nearby laundry said she had a narrow escape from the landslide.
“I was going out for lunch with some co-workers, and all of a sudden I heard a loud noise and then I saw the m&d rushing towards us. I had to run. Some of my co-workers are missing,” the Beijing Youth Daily quoted her as saying.
The Shenzhen Special Zone Daily quoted one witness as saying that three members of his employer’s family were buried by the landslide. Another witness said four of his friends were trapped.

A damaged vehicle is seen among the debris at the site of a landslide at an industrial park in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, December 20, 2015. Photo: Reuters
Shenzhen deputy secretary general Li Yikang said about 900 people fled the buildings before they came down. About 1,500 people were scouring the debris.
Both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang called for all-out rescue efforts.
Shenzhen mayor Xu Qin returned from meetings in Beijing to oversee the efforts.
An environmental assessment report submitted in January said the m&d deposit was on top of a quarry that had caused serious soil erosion, posing a danger to surrounding hillsides, Sohu reported.