Firefighters carry a body at the site where a large-scale landslide hit a mining area in Maizhokunggar County of Lhasa, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, March 30, 2013. (Xinhua/Chogo)
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang on Friday ordered exhaustive efforts to rescue the buried workers
On Saturday, rescuers managed to recover two bodies in the same area, as the huge amount of debris, 4,600-meter altitude and snowy weather hampered rescue efforts.
Xinhua reporters saw at the scene on Sunday that more heavy-duty excavating devices were being transported to the site, where at least 50 excavating machines were working on the debris. Roads near the landslide site have been widened to facilitate the shipping of the equipment.
Despite suffering from altitude sickness, soldiers and armed policemen have been racing against time to sift through the debris in the hope of finding buried miners.
They have been digging in shifts, while the machines ran day and night without any stop.
"I have barely had any sleep since I came here," armed policeman Lu Wenkai told Xinhua.
"Apart from eating and sleep, I have been working all the time since I arrived here on early yesterday morning," said another soldier, who did not give his name.
"I am tormented with a headache but I have to continue my work," he added.
"We have no plan to stop the rescue operation. Instead, we have sped up our rescue efforts with more devices," said Xiang Mingqing, another armed police officer at the scene.
Disease control and prevention workers have disinfected the area, and a checkout showed that air conditions at the site remained normal.
"There are cracks on the mountaintop and secondary disasters are possible," said Jiang Yi, an armed police officer who joined the rescue efforts at the scene.
A special team of experts has been formed to monitor the mountain around the clock and three walls built at the landslide site to guard against secondary disasters.
"We have treated rescuers who suffered altitude sickness or a fever due to the snowy weather," according to Li Suzhi, president of the General Hospital of Tibetan Military Area Command. Li, leading a team of more than 40 members, arrived at the site on Saturday afternoon.
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