Dharamsala, August 23 – The death toll from the mudslides in Drugchu County had reached 1,435 Sunday with 330 still missing, Chinese state run media reported.
The county government ordered locals to stop searching for the dead to prevent disease outbreaks, Xinhua said.
“The bodies have begun to rot after being buried for two weeks. Searching the debris risks an epidemic outbreak,” Xinhua quoted a spokesman from government spokesman.
A report by Christian Science Monitor, said the mudslides were predicted 13 years ago, when Chinese government-run lumber companies cut 313,000 acres of forest from the slopes of Drugchu county between 1952 and 1990, denuding the geologically vulnerable mountainsides and subjecting them to soil erosion.
The report said the findings were supported by official records.
At the time, it said Chinese scientists warned that deforestation in geologically sensitive areas could exacerbate mudslides.
The report said two Chinese scientists published a paper warning that following “the destruction of the eco-system” in the district, “a rainstorm will carry debris down the gully, destroying farmland, houses, roads, bridges, water facilities, and power systems and causing death and injury.”
Chinese media have called it a rain-triggered mudslides, but the latest report is corroborated by a collaborative investigation by a Beijing-based Tibetan writer Woeser, which also suggested that the landslide appeared to be a “man-made disaster”.
The investigative findings said excessive mining activities, construction of number of hydroelectric power plants and other development activities, and heavy deforestation taking place in Drugchu County area could have triggered the mudslides.
The investigation, citing Chinese government reports, found more than 60 incidents of landslides in Drugchu County alone in the past, and 13 of them were said to be serious cases that threatened the safety of local residents.
