The death toll from a rain-triggered mudslide in north China's Shanxi Province rose to 178 as of 5 PM Friday, the local rescue headquarters said.

The disaster happened around 7:50 AM on Monday when the bank of a pond holding waste ore dregs burst at the Tashan Mine in Xiangfen County, Linfen City.

The ore dregs pond, built in the 1980s, was halfway up a mountain, about 50 meters above an office building, a marketplace and some residences. It was only 100 meters away from the nearest residence.

The mud, mixed with ore fragments, slid down the mountainside, washing away people and destroying buildings, trade markets and residences lying about 500 meters downstream.

Five days after the accident, hopes for survivors faded.

Wang Jungang, a Dengzhuang Town resident, watched excavators working by a deserted ramshackle two-story building, one of the few structures still standing in the sludge.

"My brothers' bodies had been recovered. But a sister-in-law was still missing," he told Xinhua. On the morning of the accident, his brothers and sisters-in-law were selling vegetable at the market.

He guessed their bodies might have been washed into the building. Therefore he had been waiting outside the building for any information about the missing.

In total, 268,000 cubic meters of sludge enveloped an area of 30.2 hectares.

Another survivor, Gao Aiying, 41, and her husband witnessed the mudslide.

"I heard something roar outside. I thought it was an earthquake. We rushed out of the house and held a tree. We saw many people swallowed by the mud."

The couple dug out five people with their bare hands in 10 minutes but one was already dead and another severely hurt with a head injury.

The scene looked like a construction site. Rescuers, with the aid of excavators, were trying to clear up the mud.

The chief of the rescue headquarters, Lian Zhendong, said, "The mud will be cleared up off the ground by tomorrow. But we will face even more difficulties in clearing the sludge in the two ravines."

Over the past four days, a team of more than 2,500 people and 2,800 police staff participated in the the rescue operation. A total of 2,100 medical personnel assisted in the operation.

"Our job is to take care of the rescuers now," said Yang Xuming, a Xiangfen County health bureau official. "They were almost collapsing after several days of continuous work."

The State Council, China's Cabinet, set up an accident investigation team on Thursday, including officials from the State Administration of Work Safety, Shanxi provincial government, Ministry of Supervision, Ministry of Land and Resources, and All China Federation of Trade Unions.

Wang Jun, the State Administration of Work Safety director, called the accident "the most grave accident that involves the largest death toll so far this year, which has brought huge losses and extremely bad influences."

"The old dam had potential danger," said Luo Guoyou, a Chongqing-native migrant worker in the Tashan Mine. "But the boss was too stingy to build a new one."

Luo's wife, swallowed by the mudslide, was still missing.

Zhang Jiping, a local of the inundated village of Yunhe, told Xinhua that "no one dared to blow the whistle because the boss of the mine was so rich that he could settle everything with money."

"Every time it is the same -- when a large number of officials were sacked because of the accident, the new ones continue to make the same mistakes," he added.

After a preliminary investigation, the investigation team believed it was an "accident of grave responsibility" resulting from the illegal operation of an unlicensed ore mine.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2008)