Mud slide at Tibet mine buries 83; 21 known dead

BEIJING - Authorities in Tibet said Sunday that chances were slim that any survivors would be found after a massive mud slide at a gold mine buried 83 workers in piles of earth up to 100 feet deep.

Rescuers have found 21 bodies and were searching for the remaining missing.

The landslide Friday has spotlighted the extensive mining activities in the mountainous Chinese region of Tibet and prompted questions about whether excessive mining had destroyed the region's fragile ecosystem.

The workers were buried when mud, rock, and debris swept through the mine in Gyama village in Maizhokunggar county and covered an area measuring about 1.5 square miles about 45 miles east of the regional capital, Lhasa.

By Sunday evening, searchers had found 21 bodies and were searching for the remaining missing workers, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said.

Xinhua quoted the Communist Party deputy secretary for Tibet, W. Yingjie, as saying chances were slim of finding anyone alive.

The miners worked for Huatailong Mining Development, a subsidiary of the state-owned China National Gold Group Corp., the country's largest gold producer.

Beijing says the cause of the disaster has yet to be fully investigated, although state media say the mud slide was caused by a "natural disaster," without giving specifics.

Criticisms over possibly excessive mining in Tibet flashed through China's social media Saturday before they were scrubbed off or blocked from public view by censors.

Btan Tundop, a Tibetan resident, noted the Huatailong mine's dominance in the area in a short-lived microblog: "The entire Maizhokunggar has been taken over by China National Gold Group. Local Tibetans say the county and the village might as well be called Huatailong."

The Chinese government has been encouraging development of mining and other industries in long-isolated Tibet as a way to promote its economic growth and raise living standards. The region has abundant deposits of copper, chromium, bauxite, and other precious minerals and metals, and is one of fast-growing China's last frontiers.