Rescuers work at the landslide site of an industrial park in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, Dec. 20, 2015.[Photo/Xinhua]

"HUGE WAVES"

A video clip on microblog Sina Weibo shows powerful mud rocking the site with roaring sounds.

A resident living about four kilometers away from the site told Xinhua that he heard "a loud explosion" at around noon.

"It must be a big accident, as I could hear the sound from so far away."

An employee with the Liuxu Technology Co. in the park said power supply in the company suddenly went down at around noon.

"I saw red earth and mud running towards the company building," he said. "Fortunately, our building was not hit, and all people in our company were safely evacuated."

He said the landslide first crushed into a fish pond before burying buildings in the park, with water splashing up to three stories high.

"Without the pond's buffer, there would be more damage," he said.

Peng Jinxin, a local villager, said the large amount of mud came like "huge waves" when the landslide struck. Another villager said he narrowly escaped the disaster before torrents of mud engulfed his home.

"At one point the running mud was only ten meters away from me," he said.

The mud has covered an area of more than 60,000 square meters with an average thickness of 6 meters, according to geological experts at the site.