China is investigating whether rescue efforts following a landslide that killed at least 260 people were hampered by corrupt local officials trying to hide the true death toll, state press said yesterday.
The disaster occurred on Sept. 8 in the northern province of Shanxi when a mining tailings pond burst, swamping a village of 1,000 people in a torrent of mud and sludge.
A total of 260 bodies have been recovered in the town of Taoshi, with another 10 people missing, the latest official accounts in the state-run press said.
Local officials are suspected of “deliberately concealing” the discovery of 51 of those bodies amid initial rescue efforts to keep the death count down, the China Daily reported, quoting the national work-safety administration.
Local authorities had deliberately failed to record the deaths, as required, before letting grieving family members take away the corpses, the report said.
The concealment “could have led to a delay in proper rescue operations,” it quoted Huang Yi (黃毅), spokesman for the State Administration of Work Safety, as saying.
Huang also pointed to corrupt practices by local authorities for allowing the tailings pond, which was used by an unlicensed mine above the village, to exist.
“What had the local authorities been doing while such an [illegal] mine functioned right under their noses? Investigation on possible corruption is a must,” the China Daily quoted him as saying.
State media last week quoted Minister of Work Safety Wang Jun (王君) saying “several hundred” people were thought still buried in the mud.
However, later reports have said rescuers had already combed through nearly all of the affected area.
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