Some 30 buildings and homes collapsed and a natural gas pipeline some distance away exploded as a thundering torrent of mud and debris descended on an industrial park in Shenzhen, in southern China, on Sunday, leaving some 59 people missing in its wake, according to Chinese authorities.

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President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang have ordered immediate rescue efforts. 

This early, the state-run Xinhua news agency has said the government fears that many may have lost their lives when a powerful landslide smashed through the Liuxi Industrial Park in Shenzhen's Guangming New District on Sunday morning.  No fatalities have been reported as of this writing.

Some 1,500 rescue workers are now on site, scouring twisted debris and smoking piles of wreckage for signs of survivors.  Some 900 people have been rescued as of 0900 GMT, according to reports.  The Shenzhen fire brigade has said it is working to rescue others who remain trapped under the rubble.

Witnesses say industrial vehicles were overturned and cars were buried as red mud roared across the park.  The Shenzhen municipal government had initially issued a statement on Weibo saying that the landslide had caused an explosion at a nearby gas station.  Authorities now say a ruptured natural gas pipeline had exploded at Hengtaiyu industrial park.  The explosion was hard four kilometers away.   

An initial report from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security's firefighting bureau had said that an area of some 20,000 square meters was buried in soil and rocks. The most recent updates inidicate that the mud and debris had actually engulfed some 10 hectares. 

The BBC reports that two of the collapsed buildings were workers' dormitories. 

"I saw red earth and mud running towards the company building," one worker was quoted by Xinhua as saying.  "Fortunately our building was not hit, and all people in our company were safely evacuated."

Ren Jiguang, the deputy chief of Shenzhen's public security bureau, told state broadcaster CCTV that most of the people in the area were evacuated to safety before the landslide hit.

Quoting a local resident, the Beijing Youth Daily says that soil excavated from a construction site over the past two years had rolled down and piled up against a 100-meter high hill before rushing down onto the industrial park.  But it is yet unclear what had started the slide.  

This is the second landslide to hit China in as many months. A landslide in the country's Zhejiang province killed some 25 people last November.

TagsMinistry of Public Security, Liuxi Industrial Park, Li Keqiang