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Xiangfen: The death toll from the landslide in China reached to 128 on Thursday, with authorities fearing it may rise, state media said.
A three-storey wave of mud and mine waste inundated an entire village of 1,000 people on Monday in Xiangfen county in Shanxi province, the China Daily newspaper reported, citing witnesses.
State media put the official death toll at 128 people with 35 more injured.
Authorities have declined to state a figure for the number of missing people, saying an investigation is continuing. But news reports said hundreds may be buried in the mud.
"There's almost no hope of their survival ... they have been buried for three days under two meters (yards) of slush," Wang Jun, head of the State Administration of Work Safety, said in the China Daily report.
Wang said there could be several hundred people buried under the sludge, according to the report.
But Huang Yi, a spokesman of the administration, told The Associated Press that Wang had not commented on the possible number of people buried.
The figure could be known by the end of Thursday, according to Wang Qingxian, a Shanxi province spokesman, cited in the report.
More than 2,000 police, firefighters and villagers were mobilised in the search, but conditions were difficult.
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