Race to find survivors after Chinese pit collapses

Rescuers dig through tons of earth to search for 48 miners trapped after a landslide at an open pit in China.

Bulldozers and trucks carefully cleared the ­soil and rubble as the death toll from the disaster rose to five last night.

But conditions remain dangerous and the search had to be suspended for several hours after a second landslide hit the Alxa League mine in Inner Mongolia.

The initial cave-in of one of the pit’s walls happened at around 1pm on Wednesday, burying people and mining trucks below in tons of rocks and sand.

About 900 government-approved 
rescuers with heavy equipment have worked at the site since to recover ­bodies and search for survivors.

And people living close to the mine have been sent to stay in a nearby town, reports state media.

President Xi Jinping demanded an ‘all-out effort in search and rescue’ and called for work ‘ensuring the safety of people’s lives and property and maintaining overall social stability’.

The cause of the accident remains under investigation. But mine owner Inner Mongolia Xinjing Coal Industry Company was last year fined last for multiple safety violations.

They ranged from insecure access routes to the mining surface to unsafe storage of volatile materials and a lack of training for its safety overseers, reports Chinese news website The Paper.

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