According to state media, a Chinese coal mine collapsed on Thursday, killing at least five people and leaving 48 others missing. Workers at the open-pit mine in the northern area of Inner Mongolia were buried by a landslide that was around 550 yards wide and 90 yards tall.

Approximately 300 rescue professionals with sniffer dogs and heavy machinery were dispatched to the location in an effort to liberate the guys trapped beneath the boulders. One miner injured on Thursday told state television CCTV that he had just begun his shift when he noticed the avalanche speeding down the mountain toward him. “I noticed that the situation was becoming increasingly dire, and an evacuation was planned, but it was too late; the mountain simply crumbled,” he claimed. President Xi Jinping pledged that “every effort imaginable” would be taken to rescue the trapped miners.