Flags across the country flew at half mast, all public forms of entertainment have been suspended and front pages of the country’s main websites removed all color from their pages.

The day began with thousands of people gathering in Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square, with the somber atmosphere punctuated by shouts of “Come on Zhouqu! Come on China!,” in images shown on state television.

Zhouqu in the northwestern province of Gansu was devastated when an avalanche of mud roared down the slopes of a mountain last weekend after unusually strong rain. The death toll has now risen to 1,239, with another 505 missing.

Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said such a large public expression of grief would show the country’s determination to get over the disaster.

Officials had warned for years that heavy tree-felling and rapid hydro development were making the mountain area struck by the mudslide vulnerable to flooding and land slips.

Update: China Media Project reproduces black and white covers of China’s newspapers published today.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: floods 2010, landslide, natural disasters, Zhouqu landslide
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The “massive landslide” hit in Zhongyang county in Shanxi province in the late morning, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that they were checking exactly how many people were missing, and that a rescue mission was underway.

He said they had no confirmed death reports yet.

In September of last year, a mudslide triggered by dammed up tailings from an iron ore mine killed over 250 people in the same province.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: landslide, natural disasters, Shanxi
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Flooding along the steep mountains that witnessed last year’s earthquake has brought more misery to survivors. Local governments in Sichuan and Gansu provinces are sending tents and relief for a second time, as rains and floods displaced thousands of people.

The May 12, 2008 earthquake killed about 80,000 people, left 5 million homeless, and severely weakened the steep slopes that front the fertile Sichuan plain.

Electricity was only just restored on Thursday to 80,000 people hit by floods last week in Longmen, southern Gansu province, Xinhua said.

On Thursday, the heavy rains triggered a landslide at the Changheba hydropower plant in Kangding, temporarily blocking a river. Up to 97 people trapped by the slide have been rescued, but at least 53 are still missing, Xinhua said, citing the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Sichuan earthquake, floods, landslide, natural disaster, Sichuan
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The Sept. 8 disaster in Shanxi underscored two major public safety concerns in China: the failure to enforce protective measures in the country’s notoriously deadly mines, and the unsound state of many of its bridges, dams and other aging infrastructure.

The collapse of an illegal mining dump unleashed a wave of mud and mining waste that inundated a valley in Xiangfen. The landslide occurred just as morning customers were arriving at a busy outdoor market near a village of more than 1,000 residents.

An investigation after the accident showed the dumping reservoir was built in violation of regulations and had almost no safety inspections… the jailed officials included seven who worked for the county’s land and resources administration; one land and resources administration official for the city of Linfen, which oversees Xiangfen; one environmental protection official; and three township officials. The governor of Shanxi resigned and his deputy was fired.

See also past CDT posts on the disaster, such as “The Lifan Landslide” and “A Reporter’s Investigation Exposed a Scandal.”

© cschultz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: landslide, Lifan, Shanxi
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The death toll was six men and three women, and eight people were injured, rescuers said.

    The local government has relocated 85 people whose homes were threatened by a barrier lake formed by the landslide.

    The landslide buried two entrances of the Jiwei Mountain mine, an iron ore plant, and 12 houses in Tiekuang Township, Wulong County, about 170 kilometers southeast of central Chongqing.

The AFP notes the discrepancy in numbers:

The government Saturday said 72 people were missing in the avalanche, while state radio said Saturday 26 people were confirmed dead.

Ai did not explain the discrepancy in the toll numbers.

State news agency Xinhua later reported that seven bodies had been recovered from the debris. The seven bodies, including five men and two women, had yet to be identified, Xinhua reported.

Official figures show that more than 3,200 workers died in China’s notoriously dangerous coal mines last year, but independent observers say the actual figure could be much higher, as many accidents are covered up.

China Daily also reported on the standard amount given to families in a crisis like this:

Families of victims of the landslide that reportedly killed 35 people in the southwestern industrial hub of Chongqing will receive at least 200,000 yuan ($29,200), the standard compensation payment for fatalities from negligent accidents, local officials said.

Although officials with Wulong county, where Friday’s accident took place, have said there was “no clear indication” human error caused the landslide, various local sources claimed excessive drilling and mining were to blame.

The privately-owned iron ore mine, named Sanlian and boasting a capacity of 100 tons a day, had neglected government warnings to stop production because of “possible geological dangers” since 2001, said several miners.

Su Xianyun, one of the mine’s three owners, is reportedly in police custody.

See also perspectives from the AP and video of the rescue efforts from CCTV.

© jleung for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chongqing, landslide, miners
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

From IOL:

Hundreds of rescue workers and volunteers were on Saturday searching for dozens of people feared buried alive when part of a mountain collapsed in a massive landslide in south-west China, officials said.

Seventy-four people were missing after the disaster struck on Friday afternoon in an iron ore mining district of the vast Chongqing municipality, a Chongqing government spokesperson told a televised news conference.

[...]Eight people have been rescued from the debris, with three seriously injured and one of those in a critical condition, local officials said. They were all taken to hospital.

From BBC:

Recovery efforts were being hampered as heavy machinery cannot be used on the unstable terrain, officials said.

Further rain is also expected in the region, slowing the work of some 500 rescuers who have been drafted to help.

[...]Rescuers told state news agency Xinhua that they were hopeful of finding 27 miners who were underground at the time, but that prospects for those buried on the surface were not good.

See the BBC article for a video of Chinese media coverage of rescue efforts as well.

From the Guardian:

More than 500 rescuers were today searching for survivors of a landslide that buried an iron ore plant and several homes, killing 26 people and leaving dozens missing in a valley in south-western China, state television said.

Nineteen miners and seven employees of a mobile phone company were killed in the landslide yesterday afternoon in Wulong county, about 90 miles (150km) from Chongqing city, CCTV said.

[...]An official from Chongqing’s work safety supervision bureau said the landslide did not appear to be related to mining activities. Similar landslides have been reported around China, including one in northern Shanxi province last year in which 277 people died after a makeshift holding reservoir burst and a wave of mud and iron-mining waste inundated a valley.

© dwang for China Digital Times (CDT), 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Chongqing, landslide, miners
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Originally from Dayang Net. Partially translated by Wu Nan.

Last week China’s State Council formed a special investigative team to examine a landslide accident in Loufan county of Shanxi Province. It was originally reported that “eleven people were killed and it was a natural landslide accident.” But now the special investigation is looking into the false reporting. The website of the State Administration of Work Safety showed that 41 bodies of victims have been found. How did the whole thing turn from “a natural disaster” to “a severe accident”? It was because of Sun Chunlong, an investigative reporter from “Oriental Outlook” weekly who wrote an open letter to the governor of Shanxi, and exposed his investigation of the truth on his blog.

Here’s a timeline of the whole event:

On August 1, 2008, Shanxi provincial media reported that a natural landslide happened in Loufan county and 11 people were buried underneath and died.

By the end of August, reporter Sun Chunlong and a freelance writer Wang Xiaoze published the article, “Loufan: the Delayed Truth,” and pointed out that the so-called Loufan accident was falsely reported. The real death toll shot up to 41. It was not natural disaster, but a major liability accident.

On Sept. 14, Sun Chunlong’s blog published the letter ” To Mr. Wang Jun, the acting governor of Shanxi Province.” The letter once again pointed out the problem of the Loufan accident.

On Sept. 17, Premier Wen Jiabao and State Councilor Ma Kai acknowledged that the blog exposed the truth of Loufan, and demanded Shanxi Province verify the facts.

The State Council supervised and the Shanxi government directed the investigation team. It found out the place where the incident happened was run by the New Tower Mining Company. For one week from Sept. 22-29, 41 bodies of victims and six individual body parts were found.

On October 6, the State Council approved the special investigation into the false reporting of the event.

Q&A with the investigative reporter Sun Chunlong:

(Sun, born in 1976, a native of Shanxi, is currently the director of the social investigation department and also the editor-in-chief of “Oriental Outlook,” an in-depth investigative weekly magazine based in Beijing. )

Q: Why were you concerned about the Loufan incident?

Sun: After I read reports on the incident, my first reaction was that something might be covered up. On the Internet, one section called “Loufan bar” said the death toll was concealed. My friends in Shanxi said it, too. So I went to Loufan to investigate. My colleague Wang Xiaoze helped me and did some interviews in Beijing.

Q: Can you tell us about your interviews, any difficulties encountered?

Sun: The local government went after the reporters. Once the identity of a reporter was leaked, you would be “kicked out” of Loufan county.

I took the train and kept a few hundred meters away from the checkpoint when I got off. I walked into Loufan and lived in a mining site. Throughout the interview, I had to disguise myself. On the road to the scene of the accident, there were three checkpoints, I had to bypass them for my investigation.

Q: How did you come up with a list of 41 people who died?

Sun: At that time, many family members of the victims stayed in a local hotel. I asked dozens of those family members to write down their missing relatives’ names. In order to verify the list, my colleague, Wang Xiaoze, phoned every village that those people were from and finally confirmed those names.

Q: You already published the article “Loufan: the Delayed Truth.” Why did you have to blog the letter?

Sun: When the article was published, many websites reproduced the article, but the links were all missing and the article was unable to be viewed. I was upset about it and decided to blog it to tell the truth.

Q: When you blogged it, did you think that it may raise the attention of the national leaders?

Sun: No, I just wanted to expose the matter. I remember in my interviews, family members shed tears. At the beginning they did not trust me. They said that many reporters came to Loufan to report the event, but none had published reports. I promised them to try my best to expose it. I could not forget the families who looked helpless and I wished that I could help them. If I did not expose it, wasn’t I a derelict reporter ?

The names of 41 victims confirmed by Sun and Wang:

Loufan County, Majiazhuang town, Xiangsigou village: Si Dawei, Li Gaiwen, Wang Tiedan, Su Xianxian, Li Liangze, Si Yuying, Wang Decun, Lou Hongyan, Hao Aicun, Li Wuxiang, Ho Sanhua, Su Jiawei, Su Jiali and Su Jinchan.

Loufan county, Tianchidian town, Nanfen village：Gao Yuanqing

Loufan county, Tianchidian town, Tianchidian village: Cun Mansheng

Jiaocheng county, Dongpodi town, Zhongjiagou village: Li Hugai, Li Laigui, Li Jian, Zhao Xuewen, Hao Dongze, and Fang Genda.

Jiaocheng county, Dongpodi town, Dulihui village: Ma Fusuo, Gong Lieyu, Ma Yaohui.

Jiaocheng county, Dongpodi town, Ma’anping village: Cui Shuyi and Yan Huan’e.

Jiaocheng county, Dongpodi town, Lijiagou village: Hu Sixin, Wu Yaoqiang and Wu Wenqiang.

Fangshan county, Mafang town, Yangjiagoucun: Guo Qugui, Zhang Danjun, Guo Xudong, Guo Xiaxia, Guo Huihui,and the son of Guo Xudong.

Fangshan county, Jicui town, Bangluo village: Ma Jiping

Lin county, Muguoping town, Haojiacha village: Guo Lai Shun

Gansu province, Guanghe county, Sanjiaji town, Zhentou village: Ma Jinalin, Ma Maimu and Ma Fuhua.

-ESWN’s Roland Soong also posted translations on this topic.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bloggers, journalists, landslide, Shanxi
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Q: How was your attention drawn to the Lifan incident?
A: I read the report about this incident and my first reaction was to wonder whether there was a cover-up. At the Lifan post bar on the Internet, people claimed that the number of deaths was being covered up. My friends in Shanxi also said that. So I traveled to Lifan to investigate. My colleague Wang Xiao worked with me from Beijing.

Q: Can you tell us what sort of difficulties and obstacles you encountered during your investigation?
A: The local government had set up some stern measures. If they should find out that I am a reporter, I would be ‘invited’ to leave Lifan.
I got off several hundred meters before the inspection station for vehicles, and I entered Lifan on foot. After I got in, I lived on work grounds. During the entire process, I was undercover. On the road to the scene of the incident, there were three roadblocks to check people. I had to take detours and walk around the roadblocks in order to reach the scene.

© Paulina Hartono for China Digital Times (CDT), 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: landslide, Lifan, Shanxi, Sun Chunlong
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

A landslide has killed one worker and left two missing near China’s Three Gorges dam , state media has reported.

The accident happened in Badong County, a hilly area next to the dam’s 660km (410 mile) reservoir, where the group were working on a railway tunnel.The cause of the accident was not known, Xinhua said, but it comes amid growing warnings the dam is threatening its surrounding environment. Experts have warned of an increased risk of landslides around the dam. [Full Text]

[Image: The dam is meant to alleviate flooding and generate electricity, from AFP.]

© Kate Zhao for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: environmental protection, landslide, Three Gorges Dam
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall