Boy's anguish as rescuers search for bodies after deadly China landslide
Boy's anguish as search for bodies continues 02:13
Story highlights
- One little boy waits for news of his parents missing in landslide
- State broadcaster CCTV says likelihood of finding survivors is slim
- A mountain of waste collapsed at an industrial estate in Shenzhen, China
Shenzhen, China (CNN)The
parents of six-year-old Hong Laibao were delivering goods at an
industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen when a mountain
of construction waste collapsed, engulfing factory buildings and homes.
"I want my mum and my
dad to come out faster," he said, wiping tears from his eyes as he spoke
to CNN from a local sports stadium being used as temporary shelter
alongside his elder brother and aunt.
So far, they're nowhere to be found.
A
massive rescue effort involving 4,000 people has been underway since
Sunday's landslide, but the likelihood of finding people still alive is
small, state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday.
The
first victim's body has been pulled from the red mud and rubble,
according to a televised press conference given by Shenzhen's local
government, and there are still more 76 reported missing.
CNN
footage showed dozens of excavators working to clear the rubble,
dwarfed by the sheer scale of the landslide, which covered 380,000
square meters (94 acres) -- or around 60 football fields.
Densely
packed with few air pockets, in some places the mud and debris was
piled four stories tall, CCTV reported. The landslide toppled buildings
and ruptured a gas pipeline, so clearing the site could take weeks, it
added.
Meanwhile, little Hong's elder brother described how he called his father repeatedly, until his cell phone battery went flat.
"When
are they going to find our parents? In our culture, no matter what
happened to them, we need to see them, even if it's their remains," said
Hong Xianlin.
At least 16 people remain hospitalized, three in a serious condition, according to Shenzhen's emergency response office.
What caused the collapse?
What exactly caused the landslide isn't clear.
The
company in charge of the waste dump's construction purportedly raised
safety concerns in a January report filed with the municipal government,
according to the state-run Legal Evening News.
About
one million square meters (247 acres) of soil waste is left every year
in Guangming New District and there's need to find its way out.
Therefore it is needed urgently to build new waste dumps," the report
read, according to the state-run Legal Evening News.
The report also raised the issue of soil erosion, as the dump used to be a quarry, the newspaper said.
"The
area used to be a rock field, the rocks were all dug out, which created
a hollow pond, so they filled the pond with mud waste, all kinds of mud
waste, which turned into a giant mountain," Liu Huizhen, Hong's aunt,
told CNN.
Residents had also repeatedly complained about noise and dust coming from the waste dump, local media reported.
Locals told Xinhua that hundreds of trucks carrying construction waste used to dump trash into the pile every day.
A security guard working in a factory in the area told Xinhua that a 250-yuan ($38) fee was charged per truck.
Migrant workers
Authorities
said it was hard to calculate the exact number of missing because many
of the people living and working there are thought to be migrant workers
from China's poorer, inland provinces, who are often unregistered or
their relatives so far away to be contacted quickly.
Hong's parents were from the northern province of Henan and had been living in Shenzhen for 10 years.
The city, just a short drive from the international financial center of Hong Kong, is regarded as the birthplace of China's economic miracle
but the disaster, which came four months after massive and chemical
blasts killed almost 200 people in the northern city of Tianjin, shows
the costs of the country's rapid industrial transformation.
Little
Hong visited the landslide Monday, with his aunt and elder brother, but
refused to leave the site when it was time to go.
"He
simply wouldn't leave, and said that he'd regret it if leaves. He says
he doesn't want (to leave) even if all the money in the world is given
to him, he only wants his parents," said Liu, his aunt.
"These boys are going to be orphaned, with no-one to take care of them," she added.
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