Rescuers conducted a safety exercise on Monday as they raced to locate survivors of a massive landslide in the city of Lishui in east China’s Zhejiang Province.
The death toll from the landslide, which was triggered by flooding on Friday night in Lidong Village, has risen to 25 people while 12 others remain missing, authorities said. The avalanche of mud and rock caused by torrential rain engulfed some 27 homes.
The emergency exercise, which lasted a few minutes, was aimed at securing the safety of the workers involved in the rescue operation in case of further landslides. More than 2,300 rescuers and 60 digging machines have been mobilized to search for those people who may be buried alive, said authorities.
“There are signs of further landslides based on our analysis of the geological activities at the site earlier. So we advised the commander that we will conduct an emergency exercise and develop a forecasting system to ensure a smooth rescue operation,” said Ma Haitao, a researcher at the China Academy of Safety Science and Technology.
Ma added that monitoring equipment including a slope synthetic aperture radar was used for the landslide assessment.
“The radar is able to detect a slope deformation of 0.1 millimeters. So once there is a large-scale landslide reaching a certain speed, the radar can send out a message in advance so that we can ensure the safety of the rescuers,” he said.
The rescue efforts have been hampered by rain, which started on Monday morning and is expected to continue throughout the week, according to the local meteorological department.
“There has been constant activities on the ground surface at the site following a round of rainfall, and it stopped after the rain stopped. But once there is more rain, it will probably become active again,” said Ma, while reading radar satellite data.
In the wake of the landslide, about 200 people from 10 professional civil rescue teams from Lishui and neighboring cities also rushed to the site to participate in rescue work. (CCTV)
