Update | Shenzhen landslide: 76 missing and only one body found as angry relatives and survivors criticise night-time suspension of rescue efforts

Angry survivors and relatives of people that are still missing have criticised a five-hour suspension to rescue efforts following the deadly landslide on the outskirts of Shenzhen, as the body of the first victim was recovered early on Tuesday morning.

Read more: Shenzhen landslide: First dead body found among debris as blame game continues over Chinese disaster zone

The grim discovery – reported by Xinhua news agency, without giving more details – came as the rescue command centre confirmed there was no potential danger of a secondary disaster after staff from China National Petroleum Corporation cleared the remaining natural gas in the nearby pipelines overnight.

Officials said on Monday that 85 people were missing from Sunday’s disaster, revised down from 91 earlier. Seven people were rescued.

Relatives of those that are missing questioned why rescue efforts were suspended from 11pm on Monday until 4am on Tuesday – the “golden hours” for finding survivors – despite the authorities promising that attempts to find survivors would go on throughout the night.

Some relatives said they had climbed over hills of mud and rubble to get close to the scene of landslide at about 2am on Tuesday, only to find the excavators were idled.

The catastrophe struck the Hengtaiyu Industrial Park in Guangming New District, Guangdong, on Sunday morning.

At least 33 buildings were battered or buried by the huge landslip that blanketed more than 380,000 square metres, according to the Shenzhen government.

One woman survivor, Zhou Suqing, 48, said she had had a narrow escape as she fled from the tide of mud as it approached, but her husband, Hu Wenhua, 49, had been buried alive.

“Dozens of people were trying to run away from the mud, some were lucky enough to be pushed out by the impact of the landslide, but others were buried under the mud,” she said.