China pit mine collapse caught on camera, search on for missing workers

Newly released video has shown the moment an open pit mine collapsed in China's northern Inner Mongolia region.

Wednesday's collapse at the coal mine in Alxa Left Banner killed at least four people, injured several more and left about 50 others missing, state media reported.

The vision, which aired on China's CCTV, showed a massive wall of reddish dirt or sand rushing down a slope onto mining vehicles moving below.

Since then, experts have been meeting to work out how to best locate missing people.

More than 300 rescue workers operating 129 rescue vehicles were participating in the search.

The company running the mine, Inner Mongolia Xinjing Coal Industry Co. Ltd., was cited and fined last year for multiple safety violations ranging from insecure access routes to the mining surface to unsafe storage of volatile materials and a lack of training for its safety overseers, according to the news website The Paper.

Inner Mongolia is a key region for mining of coal and various minerals and rare earths, which critics say has ravaged the original landscape of mountains, grassy steppes and deserts.