Seventeen people were still missing and unlikely to survive
after a large amount of gold ore tailings engulfed their
houses?on?April 30 in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, local rescuers said on
Friday.
The accident happened at about 6:40 PM Sunday when a dam
containing drosses of processed gold ores collapsed in a gold mine
in Zhen'an County of Shangluo City.
The missing people were possibly buried under ore tailings and
the remainder of the dam is rickety hindering rescue work, the
rescuers said.
The landslide rushed down the dam and buried about 40 rooms of
nine households, leaving 17 residents missing and injuring five
others.
The accident took place when the dam is undergoing the sixth
heightening project to increase its capacity.
The dam, belonging to the county-level Gold Mining Co. Ltd.,
with an original capacity of 1 million cubic meters, had been
heightened for five times since the company was established in 1993
with a daily processing capacity of 300 tons of gold ores.
More than 130 local residents have been evacuated from the site
of the accident and resettled elsewhere.
The local government has taken emergent measures to prevent the
poisonous content in the tailings, including sodium cyanide, from
polluting the environment.
Investigation into the cause of the accident is underway.
(Xinhua News Agency May 6, 2006)