RESCUERS ARE continuing their frantic efforts to stabilise an unstable lake created by the landslide in Zhouqu at the weekend, which killed hundreds in China’s deadliest landslide in decades.
There are fears the lake could burst its banks and engulf the areas downstream where relatives and aid workers are still desperately searching for survivors. The landslide was the most deadly single incident in a year of heavy flooding that has already claimed nearly 1,500 lives.
So far 702 people have been confirmed dead from the deluge of mud, rocks and water that swept away large swathes of Zhouqu at the weekend, with another 1,042 missing. Rescuers pulled 1,243 people out of the mire and 42 of them were seriously injured, Tian Baozhong, head of the provincial civil affairs department, said.
Some relief goods were managing to get through – thousands of tents have arrived, according to Mr Tian, though they have not been put up yet because of the lack of space.
And there are lots of rescuers at hand. The People’s Liberation Army, which has become one of the more efficient rescue organisations after a series of natural disasters in the past few years, has sent 5,300 soldiers, 150 vehicles, four helicopters and 20 speed boats to Zhouqu, Du Kangzhan of the PLA’s Lanzhou Area Command, said.
While rescue work continues, attention now turns to what exactly makes areas like this so vulnerable to disasters of this scale.
A geologist, Xu Shaoshi, from the Department of Land and Resources said that Zhouqu was in a particularly vulnerable because of its mountainous location and the structure of the land there, combined with the effects of the Sichuan earthquake which had loosened the mountainsides in the Gannan prefecture, where Zhouqu is found. The area lies some 650 kilometres from the regional capital in Lanzhou.
Mr Xu said it would take at three to five years to stabilise properly after the huge quake in May 2008 which left 87,000 dead or missing.
A prolonged drought in the first six months of the year had destabilised the territory.
There had also been fears that work on hydroelectric projects, which involved vast amounts of deforestation along the banks of the 576km-long Bailong River, could make the land more prone to landslides.
Attention now turns to the next possible disaster – tropical storm “Dianmu” is heading for northern China, and expected to bring strong rains, even as far away as the landslide area.
Thousands of people downriver have already been evacuated as a precaution.