Building Collapse Kills 17 In Central China: Reports

The booming Chinese economy has spurred a wave of new infrastructure and construction projects, but corruption is common and strict enforcement of regulations is often lacking (Image source: AFP)

The collapse of a residential building under renovation in central China has killed 17 construction workers and injured another 23, state media reported on Saturday, in the latest incident to raise questions over poor regulation. The 1990s-era building in Henan province collapsed suddenly on Friday afternoon in a project which involved adding more levels to the two-storey building, state media said.

Video footage broadcast on state television showed firemen picking through the rubble using their hands in the search for survivors.

AFP/CCTV report continues:

The local government in Wuyang county, where the accident occurred, had called off the search by Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Nine of the injured were in serious condition, it said.

The booming Chinese economy has spurred a wave of new infrastructure and construction projects, but corruption is common and strict enforcement of regulations is often lacking.

In 2011, 12 workers who were building an underground parking lot in northeastern China were killed when a concrete ceiling collapsed onto them.

New York Times reports a two-story building collapsed into rubble while workers were trying to prop up the second floor during renovations in central China, killing 17 construction workers and injuring 23, officials and reports said Saturday.

The collapse happened Friday afternoon in the Wuyang County town of Beiwudu in Henan province while work was being done to shore up the building, the county government said on its website. Forty people were pulled from the debris by early Saturday morning, including 17 killed and 23 injured — nine of them in serious condition, the county government said.

People suspected of being responsible for the collapse were taken into police custody, the county government said.

Many of the victims were crushed by falling chunks of the building and at least one of the injured had spinal injuries that may cause paralysis, Wuyang People's Hospital head Liu Jinshan said in an interview with the state broadcaster CCTV, which also showed images of rescue worker at the rubble-strewn site of the collapse.

"When the patients came and were sent into intensive care unit, their injuries were really bad," Liu said.

CCTV quoted a construction worker in hospital as saying workers were using a hoisting jack to push up a corner of first floor of the two-story building when the collapse happened. The building was built in the 1990s, the broadcaster said.

A man at the Wuyang County government who declined to be named confirmed details of the collapse when reached by telephone, but said there was no new information to report. The cause of the collapse is under investigation, he said.