{"id":15773,"date":"2015-08-12T15:50:45","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T15:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=15773"},"modified":"2015-08-12T15:50:45","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T15:50:45","slug":"shanyang-county-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2015\/08\/12\/shanyang-county-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Shanyang County, Shaanxi: another mining-related landslide disaster in China"},"content":{"rendered":"
Shanyang County, China<\/h5>\n

In the early hours of Wednesday morning a landslide occurred<\/a> at the site of the Wuzhou Mining Company in Shanyang County<\/span>, Shaanxi, China.\u00a0 The landslide buried three dormitories housing mine workers, burying over 60 people.\u00a0 At the time of writing Xinhua reports<\/a> that there are four survivors who have been recovered from the debris.<\/p>\n

The exact location of the landslide is not clear.\u00a0 Youser<\/a> reports on a company called “Shaanxi Wuzhou Mining Company” as follows:-<\/p>\n

Shaanxi Wuzhou Mining Co., Ltd. is mainly engaged in mining, processing, smelting of vanadium pentoxide, there are 5 processing and smelting production lines. Its annual production capacity is to process 800,000 t of vanadium ore; its production capacity for vanadium compounds is 5000 t\/year, its production capacity for catalyst used for sulfuric acid preparation is 1000 t\/year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are a small number if images online of the landslide, which from a geological perspective might support the idea that this is a vanadium mine.\u00a0 Xinhua<\/a> has this one:<\/p>\n

\"Shanyang<\/a>

Xinhua News<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The Weather Channel has a good report<\/a> too, including some additional images.\u00a0 Most of these are typical for the aftermath of such disasters in China – i.e. dramatic portrayals of heroic rescuers – but one does provide some additional perspective:<\/p>\n

\"Shanyang<\/a>

The Weather Channel<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

The images suggest that this was a large (some reports indicate a volume of 1.3 million cubic metres) rockslide.\u00a0 The survival rate for anyone buried is likely to be very low.<\/p>\n

This is of course the latest in a long succession of mining related landslide disasters in China – indeed they seem to be an annual event.\u00a0 Previous examples include:<\/p>\n