The death toll has risen to 33 in a landslide in central China that buried a passenger bus and a team of construction workers, and could riser higher still, state media reported Sunday.
Rescuers found another body on Sunday at the scene of the disaster in Badong county, bringing the grim count to 33, along with scattered body parts that could indicate other victims, Xinhua news agency said.
Most of the bodies have been found in a bus that was passing through a mountainous area near a railway tunnel when the landslide occurred on November 20, state media have said previously, citing rescue workers.
A large section of a mountainside appeared to have collapsed onto the highway and the nearby construction site, photographs of the scene suggest. The weight of the rubble crushed the bus, leaving many of the recovered bodies identifiable only by their DNA, Xinhua had reported earlier.
Rescuers were still clearing the site and searching for a missing construction worker and two missing bus passengers. Xinhua said the accident was preceded by days of heavy rain and that landslides were common in the area, which is near the Yangtze river's Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest hydroelectric project. Poor engineering is also known to play a role in many landslides in China, particularly when mountainsides are crudely blasted away so that roads and railways can be built.
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