| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| 31 people feared dead as bus buried in China landslide |
| 2007-11-23 |
| BEIJING Thirty-one people are thought to have died after the bus they were traveling in was buried in a landslide near the Three Gorges Dam reservoir in central China, state media reported Friday. Rescue workers found the vehicle buried in rubble on a hillside in Hubei Province early Friday after its owners reported it missing, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Among the victims was a 4-month-old baby. A construction worker working on a railway tunnel further up the hill in Badong County was also killed. Two other workers are still missing, the report said. The accident happened Tuesday on a highway near the Yangtze River. Xinhua said there has been heavy rain in the area in recent days, but government officials warned in September that rising water levels in the reservoir have also increased the risk of landslides. The bus was returning to the province from Shanghai and most of the passengers who died came from the nearby town of Lichuan. Xinhua quoted local officials as saying that 31 people were on the bus and all are feared dead. State TV showed pictures of rescue workers sifting through the earth and huge boulders blocking the road, which is cut into a steep hillside. About 3,000 cubic meters of debris poured onto the highway during the landslide, Xinhua said, revising the extent of the landslide debris up from 1,000 cubic meters. "About 50 meters of highway section is covered with rubble and boulders, with the largest measuring up to 900 cubic meters. It has been very difficult for us to carry out the search," a member of the rescue team said. Emergency crews began to remove bodies from the bus Friday afternoon and continued clearing the road, which is the main highway between Hubei and Tibet. The government has in recent weeks attempted to play down the scale of the environmental damage created by the massive Three Gorges Dam project after officials said in September that it could spark an "environmental catastrophe" if preventative measures are not taken to reduce the risk of landslides and water pollution. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #1 officials said in September that it could spark an "environmental catastrophe" That was back in September, before the Party Congress. It was just pre-convention maneuvering, they're downplaying that quote now. |
| Posted by: gromky 2007-11-23 08:29 |