A 17-year-old girl who was pulled alive with her elder brother early Friday from a landslide in northwest China, where they had been buried for 54 hours, died in hospital.

"The girl had a very weak pulse when she was taken to hospital. Emergency medical treatment failed after just a few minutes," said Wang Xiongwei, dean in the orthopedics department at Zizhou County Hospital.

Her brother, Cao Lele, was still under intensive care in the hospital, which is only a five-minute ride away from the landslide site, in Shuanghuyu Village, Zizhou County.

The doctor Wang said the brother was slightly injured, but suffering the effects of being buried for 54 hours in debris.

Cao Jingjun, father of the two, was waiting outside the ward of his son.

"I had secretly felt lucky, after watching my children brought out alive this morning. But I knew my girl looked like she was dying," he said.

Cao Lele, 20, and her sister Cao Yanyan were rescued at 6:57 AM Friday, after rescuers heard the young man's feeble cry for help from beneath a collapsed floor.

Wang Li, one of the rescuers, said the pair huddled with their mother, who had already died, when they were found. The sister was seriously hurt.

"The girl had very weak breathing, when she was rescued," he said.

The rescue work ended Friday after Cao's family was found. The death toll from the landslide that occurred at 1:30 AM Wednesday has reached 27, including the death of the teenager Friday.

About 90,000 cubic meters of loess earth from a hill side crushed 25 houses, burying 44 people. Six people escaped uninjured.

On Thursday, three of the 10 slightly injured had been discharged from hospital.

Wang Haiyang, deputy county chief, said the landslide victims were not Shuanghuyu Village locals. They bought the houses here, because the village was only 1 km from the county seat.

Staff from the county's civil affairs bureau were issuing compensation payments, grants and living necessities to survivors and their families.

(Xinhua News Agency March 12, 2010)