VietNamNet Bridge – Four Australian and Canadian experts have joined the search of the five people who were buried in the rockslide in the northern province of Thai Nguyen three days ago.

Five buried in rockslide at coal mine

These experts are employees of a Vietnamese company - Nui Phao Vi Ca.

Rescue workers have used various techniques, including trained dogs, but they have not found the victims since the volume of soil and rock is huge.

Thai Nguyen Province’s Chairman Dang Viet Thuan says that it is better to invite experienced foreign experts to join the search.

By the end of April 17, rescue workers found family utensils like a bicycle, clothes and a gas cylinder. At the depth of 6 meters, the body of a dog was detected.

The search has the participation of more than 400 people, including policemen, soldiers, militias and mine workers.

All families in the surrounding area have been removed.

Ten houses were buried in a rockslide that occurred in the early morning of April 15, at an earth and rock dump near the Phan Me coal mine.

Thousands of cubic meters of earth and rocks suddenly fell onto the ten houses, which were located right beneath the tip where the materials, dug out from the mine, have been dumped for years. Five people were buried.

Earth and rocks mined at Phan Me have been dumped here in huge amounts during the past years, which make mountain-like heaps. Phan Me is owned by a local state-owned metal processing company.

Le Ha