Chinese authorities today said that no signs of life have been detected nearly 30 hours after a massive landslide buried 83 mine workers in Tibet despite a major search and rescue operation.
“Rescuers have not yet found survivors or bodies... The miners’ survival chances were slim due to the scale of the landslide,” officials of the regional government were quoted as saying by the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Rescue work is continuing, they said, adding that as the site is at an altitude of more than 4,600 metres, most rescuers have been suffering from slight altitude sickness.
And temperatures as low as minus three degrees Celsius have affected the sniffer dogs’ senses of smell.
The landslide happened late yesterday in Maizhokunggar County of Lhasa, the regional capital. The victims were workers from Tibet Huatailong Mining Development Co Ltd, a subsidiary of the China National Gold Group Corporation.
The affected area is three km wide, covered with about 2 million cubic meters of mud, rock and debris, the report said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have ordered all out efforts to rescue the workers buried in the landslide.