Family members of Kuo Wen-han, who was headed to Keelung with his girlfriend along No 3 National Freeway when the landslide occurred and has been missing since, weep on a bridge next to the site Tuesday after confirming a license plate dug up there earlier belongs to Kuo's car.

Government to inspect all roadside dip slopes to avoid similar incidents

Rescuers scrambling to dig out cars suspected of being buried Sunday in a landslide on the No 3 National Freeway have found a license plate that corresponds to one of the vehicles said to be missing.

The license plate with the number 4988-VF, found at 11:47 am Tuesday, matches that of the Mercedes-Benz that was reported as missing on Monday by the father of one of the car's passengers, Kuo Wen-han, who was headed to Keelung with his girlfriend.

More than 1,000 rescue workers, manning 200 excavators and other heavy equipment, have been working non-stop for the past two days to rescue four cars and five people feared buried in the landslide.

As of 10 am Tuesday, the workers, including 930 soldiers, had removed some 33,000 cubic meters of earth and rocks, a "National Freeway Bureau" (NFB) offi cial said.

The NFB's command center has four lifedetecting systems at the scene, hoping to detect spots where people buried under the rubble might have survived against the odds.

As of 11 am, no people or vehicles had been discovered, in the worst landslide ever on a freeway in Taiwan, Hsu said.

Lin Chao-tsung, director of the Central Geological Survey under the "Ministry of Economic Affairs", attributed the landslide to damaged rock anchors in the restraining walls along the freeway.

Faulty construction or wear on the anchors may have precipitated the collapse of a hill looming over the freeway's Keelung-Sijhih section, Lin said.

The side of the hill facing the freeway was a dip slope - a geological formation particularly prone to landslides - composed largely of sandstone, Lin said.

In another development, The "Ministry of Transportation and Communications" (MOTC) will commission a task force within three days to explore potential causes behind Sunday's landslide that buried part of the No 3 Freeway. Chen Yenpo, deputy director of the MOTC's Department of Railways and Highways, said the team, to be made up of geological experts, will be charged with establishing the cause of the disaster, the worst that has occurred on a national highway because of slope failure.

In response to grave public concern that more landslides might take place in these disaster-prone areas, the NFB said it will conduct an overall probe of all the dip slopes along Taiwan's freeways within three days to check whether any of them are in dangerous shape.

There are more than 20,000 artificial side slopes in Taipei City, according to the most recent investigation conducted April 1.

CHINA DAILY/CNA

The license plate from Kuo Wen-han's Mercedes-Benz.

A scientist from the Central Geological Survey explains to reporters on the site Tuesday that the landslide may have been the result of rock anchor failure caused by years of erosion and stress. CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY

(HK Edition 04/28/2010 page4)