Rescuers use bare hands to dig boy out of debris

Friday's collapse in the Xiangning County in north China's Shanxi Province now has claimed 15 lives and five others are still unaccounted for. A landslide caused two residential buildings, one bath center and one makeshift house, to collapse at about 6 p.m. on March 15. Now the rescue continues.

An eight-year-old boy was found alive trapped under the debris soon after the collapse occurred. Rescue started right away.

"Mommy, I'm scared!" the boy cried out.

"Baby, they're all here waiting for you," one firefighter comforted him.

Rescuers had to dig out the debris with their bare hands to avoid harm to the trapped boy. /CGTN Photo

"What kind of drinks would you like now?" Another firefighter tried to cheer him up.

"I want one of the peach flavor," the boy said, and the firefighter replied, "Ok! I will get you one!"

Rescuers say the boy was buried deeply by steel tiles, roof pieces, cement boards and glass. They used their hands to dig out a five-meter-long access to the trapped boy and provided him protection on his head first.

"We only used our bare hands to dig out the boy. Our gloves were all worn out," one of the rescuers, Wang Rurong, said.

Rescuers' gloves are worn out. /CGTN Photo

Due to falling rocks from the collapse site, the rescuers were once called to evacuate. But Wang Rurong and two other rescuers chose to continue the rescue. "We felt like we were saving our own child, because he's about the same age of our children. I felt quite anxious."

The boy was naked as he was taking a shower in the bathing center when the collapse took place. He felt cold and the rescuers tried to cover him with their jacket.

One rescuer recalled, "What made me feel sad was when we put a jacket on him, he still said he felt quite cold and he was shivering. I felt heartbroken."

It took more than two hours for the rescuers to pull out the boy. He now has been receiving medical treatment for crush injury syndrome in local hospital. Unfortunately, his mother and grandma were already found dead at the scene when rescuers found him.