CRI听力:Prosecutor Starts Investigating Shenzhen Landslide

The Supreme People's Procuratorate announcement comes just a day after a State Council investigation team confirmed the landslide is being probed as a work safety incident, not a geological disaster.

The massive pile that poured down to the industrial park was once a green space, which included water, in 2013.

By the time the incident took place, the same area was a pile of soil and construction waste up to 185-meters high.
 
Local businesses and people living in the region had reportedly been complaining about the growth of the pile for the past couple of years.

"It was a hundred-meter-high mountain, with hundreds of trucks lining up to keep dumping soil on it every day. For 2-years, we'd been complaining about this, reporting it to the environmental authorities, thinking all-the-while that something was going to go wrong."

"It was too dusty. We talked to the local police. All of them knew!"

Despite the complaints, nothing was done about it.

In September, the Shenzhen Jiangxing Project Management Advisory Company began assessing the potential danger, submitting daily and monthly reports to the district management bureau.

Four days before the massive pile came tumbling down, the company reportedly met the management bureau, along with two other companies, issuing a call to stop dumping on the site and fix the danger.

However, the order did not have any effect.

A large number of vehicles kept climbing the "hill" to dump waste until the massive pile finally gave way.

Prosecutors from both the central government and the provincial government of Guangdong have formed a special team to investigate the incident.

Yang Huanning, Director-General of National Security Control, is heading the investigation team.

"The investigation team will find out exactly what caused the accident, as well as make clear who is responsible for this. We well also put forward suggestions for making sure it doesn't happen again, which will include putting forward proposals for who should ultimately be responsible."

Yang Huanning says one key focus of the investigation will be whether there are issues such as abuse of power, dereliction of duty or bending the law for personal interests.

Only one person has been pulled alive from the massive collapse.

Seven bodies have also been recovered, while 75 others remain unaccounted for.

More than 5-thousand people from 4 different recovery teams are divided into 16 different search zones at the site.

Hundreds of excavators have also been gathered from nearby cities to help clear the huge volume of soil and building waste.
 
Authorities are warning there is still a "certain risk" of more landslides at three separate locations on the site.

And while dangerous chemicals are known to have been stored on the site, so far no air or water contamination has been detected.

For CRI, I'm Niu Honglin.