ALEXA LEG, China (AP) — Rescuers with bulldozers and bulldozers dug through tons of earth and rubble Thursday in search of the 48 people missing after a landslide buried an open-pit mine in northern China. State broadcaster CCTV reported that the confirmed death toll in the disaster had risen to five.
Conditions in the area remain dangerous, and the search had to be suspended for several hours due to a second landslide at the giant facility in Aleksa Dori, Inner Mongolia.
More than a dozen bulldozers, trucks, SUVs and fire engines were seen Thursday afternoon passing through a remote police checkpoint 25 km southwest of the mine.
Almost all of the personnel were stopped by the police and checked entry clearances before being allowed to walk along the path to the mine.
A police officer said that only those with government approval would be allowed into the area. She said people living near the mine had been sent to live in a nearby town.
Security was also tight at another checkpoint in neighboring Ningxia, 15 kilometers (9 miles) east of the mine, with dozens of officers checking every vehicle seeking to pass in either direction.
Cranes and other pieces of heavy equipment and covered trucks were seen. It was not clear what the trucks were carrying.
Rescuers used heavy excavation equipment and cameras that can dig into the rubble, along with thermal imagers and equipment to detect vital signs, Zhang Zhigang, the head of the rescue operation, told reporters Thursday.
Zhang said the crews are using the utmost caution to avoid more secondary disasters.
“We will continue to increase the rescue force, race against time, and do everything we can to search for and save the lives of every person trapped,” he said.
Zhang said the police are investigating the cause of the collapse and some people have been arrested.
“We will announce the outcome of the investigation in due course,” he said.
The initial cave-in to one of the walls of the crater occurred around 1 p.m. on Wednesday, burying people and mining trucks below with tons of rock and sand. An additional landslide followed about five hours later, suspending work.
The official Xinhua news agency said about 900 rescuers with heavy equipment were at the site and had resumed the search by Thursday morning.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for “all-out efforts in search and rescue” and “ensuring the safety of people’s lives and property and maintaining overall social stability.”
Images of the collapse distributed by CCTV showed a massive wall of debris flowing down a slope onto people and vehicles below.
The company that operates the mine, Inner Mongolia Xinjing Coal Industry Co., Ltd. has been fined. Ltd. , last year for multiple safety violations, including unsafe roads in and out of the pit, unsafe storage of volatile materials, and lack of training for safety personnel, accordingly. to the news site The Paper.
Inner Mongolia is a major mining region for coal, various minerals and rare earths that critics say have decimated the region’s landscape of mountains, grassy plains and deserts.
China relies heavily on coal for power generation, but has tried to reduce the number of deadly mine accidents by putting more emphasis on safety and shutting down smaller operations that lack the necessary equipment.
It has recorded a slew of fatal industrial and construction accidents in recent months as a result of poor safety training and regulation, official corruption, and profit-seeking corporations’ tendency to cut corners.
Despite those high-profile accidents, the total number of industrial accidents fell by 27% in 2022, when much of China’s economy was shut down under a “zero COVID” policy, from the previous year, the Ministry of Emergency Management announced last month. The ministry said the number of fatalities in accidents also decreased by 23.6%.
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