Man Buried By Mudslide Pulled Out Alive After 67 Hours

Beijing: A man has been pulled alive from mud 67 hours after he was buried in a landslide in southern China.

The 19-year-old man, identified as Tian Zeming, is the first to be rescued since the landslide covered the area on Sunday. He was in stable condition and undergoing surgery at a local hospital after being pulled from the rubble at 6.30am Wednesday, local time. He suffered multiple fractures, state broadcaster China Central Television reported in a social-media posting.

The official Xinhua news agency said the man was discovered three hours earlier in a coherent state but his legs had been crushed.

He told the soldiers who rescued him, there was another survivor close by, Xinhua said. A body of a man was discovered near Mr Tian, although it was not clear if that was the person to whom the survivor had referred.

Rescuers had retrieved another body on Tuesday, according to Xinhua. Before Mr Tian’s discovery, authorities had revised the number of those still missing to 76 from 85 after contacting people previously unaccounted for, the news agency reported.

The news agency showed images of him being lifted up onto a stretcher by rescue workers.

He was given oxygen and attached to an intravenous drip while rescuers removed the rubble around him by hand, a firefighting official told Xinhua.

About 3000 rescuers are trying to reach dozens of people still missing since the landslide at an industrial estate in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.

The waste dump at a disused quarry collapsed on Sunday, sending a wave of construction debris and red mud across the industrial park.

The 90-metre-tall waste dump in the village of Hongao had been piled too steeply, according to the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources.

As part of the authorities’ investigation into the tragedy, police detained the vice-president of Shenzhen Yixianglong Investment and Development, which owns, operates and manages the dump, state radio reported.

The executive, who was not named, was detained on Tuesday afternoon, and officers took away the firm’s computers, China Radio International reported.

Credit: DPA, Bloomberg, Reuters