7th day of rescue at landslide site

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Play VideoHeavy-duty helicopter joins rescue work after landslide Play VideoRescue coontinues at Chongqing landslide

Thursday was the seventh day of the rescue work in Chongqing after a massive landslide. Despite all the efforts rescuers have made, the chance of finding survivors is becoming slim while the risk of encountering secondary disasters is increasing.

Rescuers have been drilling a passage to the buried mine for a week now. They believe there are 27 miners beneath the ground, and hopefully still alive.

However, because all the construction papers of the mine were buried, no one knows the exact location of the mine's entrances. The chance of drilling a tunnel which will successfully connect to the mine's entrances is below 20 percent.

Amid fears that a vertical tunnel will trigger more collapses, rescuers chose to drill at an angle. But that slows down the progress. Every day they can only advance five meters. At this speed, they will need at least a month to finish the drilling.

The good news is the drilling speed will greatly improve. On Thursday, weather conditions finally cleared to allow the heavy lifting helicopter to join the rescue work. The Mi-26 helicopter delivered important heavy machinery to the rescue site, including several advanced drilling machines, pumps to send fresh air into the mine, and machines to remove giant rocks.

Workers help unload the excavator from a MI-26 helicopter at the  landslide site in Wulong County, southwest China's Chongqing  Municipality, June 11, 2009.(Xinhua/Liu Chan)