THE death toll rose to 31 yesterday from a landslide in Central China that buried a bus full of passengers and a team of construction workers, Xinhua reported.

Most of the bodies were found on a bus that was passing through mountainous Badong County in Hubei Province, when the landslide occurred Tuesday, Xinhua reported, quoting rescue workers.

Photos of the scene suggested that half a mountainside appeared to have collapsed onto the highway.

The weight of the landslide crushed the bus to wreckage only 50 centimeters thick. The bodies recovered from the wreckage were so badly crushed that they could be identified only by DNA, Xinhua said.

Earlier yesterday, the body of a 32-year-old man surnamed Yang, one of a team of four construction workers working on the road when the accident happened, was pulled from under tons of mud and rock, bringing the number of dead to 31, the news agency said.

He was the second of four construction workers to be found dead. One was injured but survived while another is still missing.

Rescuers were searching for the rest of those missing, including Yang's colleague, a 46-year-old Daganping villager surnamed Li and another bus passenger, Xinhua said.

However, there may be more victims as rescuers said they had found the wreckage of three motorcycles among the debris early Saturday morning, but this has not been confirmed by the rescue headquarters, Xinhua reported.

The Central Government is paying great attention to the incident. The State Council will set up a task force to carry out an investigation, said Wang Dexue, deputy head of the State Administration on Work Safety.

The task force will include investigators from the State Administration on Work Safety, the ministries of Railways, Supervision and the All China Federation of Trade Unions, said Wang.

Rescuers are working around clock to clear the site to ensure the traffic on State Highway 318, which links Shanghai to Tibet, can resume by the end of the month as planned, said Zhang Xinhua, head of the rescue headquarters.

However, it is a difficult job as the highway was blocked with huge boulders that have to removed with explosives.

Meanwhile, experts have finished collecting DNA samples of the bodies of the bus passengers.

Most of the victim families have arrived at the Badong County. Zhang said the local government had drafted compensation plans for the families of passengers and construction workers respectively.

"The exact amount of compensation is under negotiation, but the opinions of the victims' families are sure to be given full consideration," said Zhang.

The bus was traveling from Shanghai to Lichuan, a small city in Hubei Province. There had been days of heavy rain before the landslide.

Landslides are not rare in Badong County, through which the Yangtze River runs, Xinhua said in an earlier report.

Poor engineering is known to play a role in many landslides, particularly when mountainsides are blasted away so that roads and railways can be built.

(SD-Agencies)