Land subsidence happen across China

The road collapse in Taiyuan city is far from being an isolated case. Similar collapses have happened across the country.

How much is too much? Seven cases of land subsidence occurred within eight days in August in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province.

The most serious one was on the August 14th. Four pedestrians fell into the hole, including a fourteen-month-old girl.

The rescue work lasted for nearly five hours.

Sun Xiaoming, team leader of Nangang Fire Brigade, Harbin, said,"The collapsed area is nearly ten square meters. It's more than twelve meters deep. There's too much sludge down there, making rescue work difficult."

All four people were rushed to hospital, where two of them were pronounced dead.

Luckily, the baby girl escaped the accident with only minor grazes to her head.

In the same month, a ten-meter-deep hole opened up in Beijing because of a burst drainage pipe.

"I pass this place every day. The last land subsidence took place only three days ago. Workers fixed the hole. I never thought it would happen again so soon."

Earlier this year, in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a serious collapse took place in a village on the outskirts of Liuzhou city. Nearly 1,700 people had to be evacuated.

"The land subsidence started from my house. It started to split from one side of the wall. After several minutes the entire house collapsed. Luckily we ran outside before that happened."

But that was not the end. The road started to split in other parts of the village. Villagers were evacuated immediately.

According to Ministry of Land and Resources, China will launch four projects to bring land subsidence problems under control by 2020.