Chinese Governor Resigns Over Mudslide

The governor of Shanxi resigned as the death toll from a mudslide triggered by the collapse of an illegal mining dump in the northern Chinese province rose to 254, official media have reported.

Meng Xuenong became governor only eight months ago - a rehabilitation that came five years after he was sacked as mayor of Beijing over the handling of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak.

Last Monday's landslide happened when a retaining wall holding back waste at the Tashan iron mine in Xiangfen county, Linfen, crumbled. It unleashed a torrent of sludge which swept down upon a warehouse, a village of as many as 1,300 residents and a busy outdoor market.

Rescuers had found 254 bodies by late Saturday and identified 151 of them by today, a duty officer surnamed Gao at the Shanxi provincial government told the Associated Press agency.

Around a thousand rescue workers are still combing through 74 acres of sludge and waste covering the area, where hundreds more people could be buried.

"This is the toughest phase of the ongoing rescue," Lian Zhendong, chief of the rescue headquarters, told the state news agency Xinhua.

"We will do our utmost to finish the search in three to five days."

Villager Li Dengfeng, 30, told Xinhua his wife was buried as she bought meat for the Mid-Autumn Festival at the market.

"On that tragic day, I, along with my fellow villagers, was excavating the silt with spades like we were crazy," he added. Xinhua said Li found his wife's body two days later in the thick mud.

Identifying many of the bodies has proved difficult because a large number of the victims were unregistered migrants employed at the illegal mine, state media have said.

Meng resigned his post at a standing committee session of the Shanxi People's Congress yesterday, Xinhua said, adding that Zhang Jianmin, a vice-governor, was removed from his post at the same meeting.

Meng was tipped as a rising star when he became mayor of Beijing in 2003. But he was sacked within months after it emerged that city officials had tried to cover up the spread of Sars to the capital. The outbreak killed almost 350 people on the mainland and hospitalized 2000.

He became deputy director of a major water project, but kept his position on the Communist party's powerful Central Committee and by last year had become vice-governor in Shanxi.

The authorities underlined their focus on safety in the wake of the disaster by appointing Wang Jun, who has been overseeing rescue efforts, as acting director.

Wang, 56, was born in Shanxi province and is director of the State Administration for Work Safety.