LAST UPDATE: 16:33
Dozens of people remain trapped or missing after a high-rise building collapsed in central China, officials said today on the second day of rescue operations.
The eight-storey building (not six-storey as previously announced by the authorities) collapsed for unknown reasons, on Friday night in the city of Changsha. The building housed a hotel, apartments and a cinema.
At least 23 people were trapped until late Saturday (local time), while rescue forces could not reach 39 more people under the rubble, the city mayor told reporters.
No deaths have been reported so far.
Rescuers use circular saws to pass through the rubble to rescue survivors.
“The condition of the missing is being assessed in detail,” the mayor said as rescue crews flocked to the scene.
According to city authorities, five people were rescued overnight.
State media showed firefighters cutting a tangle of metal and concrete, while rescuers shouted in an attempt to contact survivors.
Some of the injured were transported by stretchers to a narrow alley, while detective dogs combed the area for signs of life.
Authorities have not yet commented on the disaster.
However, the state-run television network CCTV reported that “the tenants had made structural modifications to the premises”.
President Xi Jinping has ordered a thorough investigation into the causes of the collapse, state media reported.
A senior Communist Party official was sent to the scene, which testifies to the seriousness of the disaster.
This type of disaster often occurs in China, due to poor compliance with safety rules and a certain looseness of services that are supposed to ensure their proper implementation.
In January, an explosion likely caused by a gas leak hit a building in Chongqing City, about 1,700 kilometers west of Shanghai, killing at least 16 people.
The explosion of a gas pipe in a residential area in June 2021 killed 25 people in Hubei province (center).
That same month, 18 people were killed when a fire broke out at a martial arts school. All the victims were boarding school students, according to state media.
Source: Capital
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