Body found after Tibet landslide buries 83

MAIZHOKUNGGAR, Tibet, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Rescuers have found one body and are still searching for survivors more than 37 hours after a massive landslide buried 83 miners at a polymetal mine in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

At about 6 a.m. on Friday, the disaster struck a workers' camp of the Jiama Copper Polymetallic Mine in Maizhokunggar County, about 68 km from Lhasa, the regional capital.

By 8 p.m. Saturday, 3,500 rescuers and 300 large-scale machineries are working on the site, according to local authorities.

"The rescuers are conducting inch-by-inch search but they still cannot locate the missing miners," said Wu Yingjie, deputy secretary of Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the Communist Party of China.

He said the miners' survival chances were slim due to the scale of the landslide.

Wu added that a one-meter-wide and 15-meter-long crack was formed at the mountain top, which indicated a possibility of subsequent disasters.

"The two rescue priorities for now are searching for the buried and preventing subsequent disasters," said Wu.

Many rescuers were still digging with their bare hands, as the narrow and damaged local roads had prevented much large-scale machinery from entering, said Xinhua reporters at the site.

Snow started to fall in the area at 1 p.m. on Saturday, which made conditions for the rescue more difficult, they added.

Yang Dongliang, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said at the site an expert team has been formed to investigate the cause of the landslide.

A spokesman for the regional government said at a press conference that the identities of the 83 buried have been confirmed as rescue work was continuing.