Hopes fade for survivors

Hopes were fading fast yesterday that Chinese search and rescue teams would find survivors, two days after a huge landslide crashed down a Tibetan mountain and buried more than 80 mine workers.
Around 3,500 rescuers were searching for survivors and 300 pieces of large machinery had been mobilised, state media reported yesterday, with workers battling snow and altitude sickness.
Nine bodies were recovered yesterday, bringing the total to eleven after two were found Saturday, the Xinhua news agency said. That would leave 72 miners unaccounted for under two million cubic metres of earth.
The disaster struck when a huge section of land tumbled onto a mine workers' camp in Maizhokunggar county, east of the Tibetan capital Lhasa, at 6:00am on Friday.
Yang Dongliang, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said an inquiry into the landslide's cause had started with the arrival of experts from the Ministry of Land and Resources.
Xinhua said many rescuers had dug with their "bare hands" because damage to narrow local roads had kept much of the large-scale rescue machinery from reaching the site.
Mountainous regions of Tibet are prone to landslides, which can be exacerbated by heavy mining activity, and the chance of further landslides heightened safety concerns.
The disaster zone is 4,600 metres above sea level and altitude sickness was a challenge, with more medical personnel being sent to the scene.