The parents of six-year-old Hong Laibao were delivering goods at an industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen when a mountain of construction waste collapsed, engulfing factory buildings and homes.
“I want my mum and my dad to come out faster,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes as he spoke to CNN from a local sports stadium being used as temporary shelter alongside his elder brother and aunt.
So far, they’re nowhere to be found.
A massive rescue effort involving 4,000 people has been underway since Sunday’s landslide, but the likelihood of finding people still alive is small, state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday.
The first victim’s body has been pulled from the red mud and rubble, according to a televised press conference given by Shenzhen’s local government, and there are still more 76 reported missing.
CNN footage showed dozens of excavators working to clear the rubble, dwarfed by the sheer scale of the landslide, which covered 380,000 square meters — or around 60 football fields.
Densely packed with few air pockets, in some places the mud and debris was piled four stories tall, CCTV reported. The landslide toppled buildings and ruptured a gas pipeline, so clearing the site could take weeks, it added.
Meanwhile, little Hong’s elder brother described how he called his father repeatedly, until his cell phone battery went flat.
“When are they going to find our parents? In our culture, no matter what happened to them, we need to see them, even if it’s their remains,” said Hong Xianlin.
At least 16 people remain hospitalized, three in a serious condition, according to Shenzhen’s emergency response office.
The company in charge of the waste dump’s construction purportedly raised safety concerns in a January report filed with the municipal government, according to the state-run Legal Evening News.
About one million square meters of soil waste is left every year in Guangming New District and there’s need to find its way out. Therefore it is needed urgently to build new waste dumps,” the report read, according to the state-run Legal Evening News.
