Door saves worker trapped for 60 hours under sea of mud
A migrant worker was pulled out alive after he was buried for more than 60 hours in a massive landslide that swept through part of a major manufacturing city in southern China.
Rao Liangzhong of the Shenzhen Emergency Response Office said that the man, Tian Zeming, was from Chongqing in southwestern China.
“The survivor had a very feeble voice and pulse when he was found alive buried under debris, and now he’s undergoing further checks,” Dr Wang Yiguo told a news conference in Shenzhen.
State broadcaster CCTV reported that Tian later underwent surgery for a broken hand and on his foot, which had been wedged against a door panel. It said he had been trying to get out of his room when the building collapsed, and the door panel created a space for him to survive.
When rescuers found him, Tian told them his name and that there was another person buried near him, according to the transcript. Another neurosurgeon, Dai Limeng, told the news conference that he had gone into the rubble and confirmed that the second person had not survived.
More than 70 people are still missing from the landslide that happened on Sunday when a mountain of construction waste material and mud collapsed and flowed into an industrial park in Shenzhen.
The Ministry of Land and Resources has said a steep man-made mountain of dirt, cement chunks and other construction waste had been piled up against a 100m-high hill over the past two years.
Heavy rains saturated the soil, making it heavy and unstable, and ultimately causing it to collapse with massive force in and around the industrial park.