Rescuers opened a helicopter landing pad on Wednesday at Jiwei Mountain in southwest China's Chongqing, where 63 people were still missing after a massive landslide occurred on Friday.

According to rescue officials, a Mi-26 heavy-duty helicopter, with a maximum load of 20 tons, will join the rescue work Wednesday, weather permitting.

The landslide buried two entrances to the Jiwei Mountain mine, an iron ore facility in Tiekuang Township, where 27 miners were believed to be trapped.

A rescuer surnamed Jiang said that the rescue plan was to put life detection instruments into a drilled hole.

If there were signs of life, rescuers would use blasts and heavy machinery airlifted by the helicopter to clear the mine entry, he said.

Rain that began Sunday stopped Wednesday, although drizzle persisted. The region was shrouded in fog, according to Xinhua reporter at the site.

He said all roads leading to the site posed difficult conditions, and it could take three hours to drive from the rescue headquarters to the landslide site.

Jiang said rescues had stopped using explosives to remove landslide debris on Monday since using them might cause secondary disasters.

The landslide created a barrier lake with some 10,000 cubic meters of water. Rescuers were laying a drainage pipeline and paving a road on the landslide debris and planned to pump water out of the lake on Wednesday afternoon, if work progressed well.

Local authorities evacuated 141 residents from the area.

(Xinhua News Agency June 10, 2009)