(Batang Kali) The landslide that ravaged an unauthorized campsite in Malaysia on Friday has killed at least 25 people, including eight children, according to a new report, since the discovery of the body of a little girl on Tuesday evening by rescuers.
A local police chief said at a press conference on Wednesday that the child was between 6 and 10 years old and had been found five meters deep.
Rescuers continued Wednesday to rake the muddy ground of the farm where the campsite was located, in search of the last eight missing.
The landslide occurred near the town of Batang Kali, on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Officials said more than 90 people, most of them asleep, were on site at the time of the collapse, not far from a mountain resort that houses a casino perched high up.
Some 680 officers led by firefighters and police are still conducting searches after finding 61 victims safe and sound.
According to the authorities, the ravaged campsite was operating without a permit and its operators will be punished if their responsibility for the accident is proven.
Landslides are common in Malaysia, where heavy rains regularly fall at the end of the year.
However, no episode of heavy rainfall had been recorded in the area where the disaster occurred.
In March, four people lost their lives in another landslide caused by heavy rains that buried their homes in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.
In 1993, a massive mudslide driven by heavy rain caused a 12-storey residential building near the capital to collapse, killing 48 people in one of Malaysia’s worst natural disasters.