A young Chinese migrant worker has been rescued alive from the rubble of a massive landslide that wiped out an industrial park in southern China Sunday.
Authorities say 19-year-old Tian Zeming was rescued early Wednesday morning at the Hengtaiyu Industrial Park in the economic powerhouse of Shenzhen, Guangdong province. He was taken to a nearly hospital, where he was in stable condition after undergoing surgery for various injuries. He is from Chongqing in central China.
Rescue crews also managed to recover another person who was buried underneath Tian, but that person was later pronounced dead. One body was pulled out of the rubble Tuesday.
Emergency workers are racing around the clock to find any survivors in the disaster, which occurred when a large river of mud swept over the park and either destroyed or damaged 33 buildings, including 14 factories and three dormitories. More than 70 people are still reported missing.
A statement by China's land ministry Sunday blamed the tragedy on the collapse of a 100-meter tall mountain of construction waste and dirt stored at a nearby dump, which was weakened by heavy rainstorms in the region. The landslide also triggered an explosion at a nearby natural gas pipeline owned by PetroChina, the country's top oil and gas producer.
Local news reports say the Guangdong government had issued a number of warnings about the dump site over several months.
China's cabinet has announced an investigation into the landslide, which has raised new questions about safety standards in the country following three decades of breakneck economic growth. The country has seen an increasing number of industrial accidents, including a series of explosions at a chemical storage facility in the northern port city of Tianjin in August which left nearly 160 people dead.
Authorities arrested 12 company employees and 11 government officials in connection with that disaster.