Wang Yongquan, daughter in his arms, dared not look back as he ran. Behind them, a landslide was engulfing everything in its way.
"I had never run that fast before," Wang recalled on Wednesday, three days after the landslide buried an industrial park in south China's Shenzhen.
Rescuers pulled a survivor from a collapsed factory building Wednesday morning. The 21-year-old man is in stable conditions as doctors try to save his foot.
More than 4,000 rescuers, with the help of dogs, detectors and excavators, are searching for signs of life in the 380,000-square-meters of debris as more than 70 people remain missing.
Wang's parents and brother-in-law are among the missing. They migrated from central China's Henan to work as laborers and garbage collectors. Wang's home was on the hillside 200 meters from where the landslide started.
Factories and residential buildings are buried under a vast stretch of featureless mud 20 meters underground in the suburban industrial park, about one and a half hours drive away from the airport.
Wang limped around with an injured leg to find his home using the GPS map on his smart phone. He marked the location with lime powder to help rescuers find his family members.
When the landslide occurred, he was returning home with his five-year-old daughter from the supermarket. In the distance, he caught his parents and brother-in-law running out of the house. It was the last time he saw them.
Wang could not get far carrying his daughter. He wanted to take shelter but saw buildings were of no use in front of the thunderous torrent of mud. They tumbled to the side and narrowly escaped the edge of the mud flow.
Around Wang, policemen, fire fighters and volunteers were digging and looking for survivors. A rescuer and two dogs were taking a quick rest, having worked day and night since the disaster hit about 72 hours ago.
"When we dig, we hope to find people down there; on the other hand, we wish everyone had gotten out. It's a mixed feeling," a rescuer surnamed Chen said. Excavators are removing the remains of larger buildings, with rescuers moving in for more careful digging if they see any signs of life.
Many workers escaped the landslide as it hit on Sunday and the industrial park happened to be powered down, he added.
"We are racing against time to save life," said Chen Lijin, who leads a group of police rescuers from Beijing. The rescuers have been working in shifts during a non-stop search for survivors.
Over the past two years, Wang and his neighbors had seen trucks carrying construction waste to pile up the hill, which used to be a hollowed quarry with a pond where people fished. "We never thought it could be dangerous," he said.
"I still have hope," Wang said, looking at the excavators around where his home used to be, even the so called golden 72 hour of rescue has passed.
