Seven construction workers were killed in central China when a lift frame collapsed while being dismantled, Xinhua news agency said yesterday.
The accident, which happened on Tuesday at a high-rise in Nanyang, Henan Province, was under investigation, Xinhua said.
China has launched a crackdown on deadly accidents in mines, factories and on building sites, demanding that officials and managers do more to lower the tide of injury and death accompanying the nation's economic boom.
Thirty-two steel workers died in April after they were engulfed in molten metal in a poorly run plant using improper equipment.
collapse
Meanwhile, at least 20 people were injured, two of them seriously, after dozens were trapped under rubble from a collapsed building yesterday in the southwestern city of Leshan, officials and state media said.
About 90 mostly elderly people were inside a largely disused agricultural exhibition hall when part of the roof and a wall collapsed at around 7.20am, a Leshan government official said.
"There have been no deaths," Xia, who works in the information section of the city propaganda department, told reporters.
"Two have been seriously injured but they are not in danger. The others have been lightly injured — there are scratches, broken bones but nothing too serious," Xia said.
Another official by the name of Lei Dingbo confirmed Xia's story.
One firefighter was injured during the rescue of more than 30 people from the building, state media said.
Xinhua said earlier dozens were feared trapped under the building.
retirees
Most of the people in the two-storey building were retirees attending an early-morning lecture organized by a health journal and a pharmaceutical company, Xinhua said.
It added that most of the people were sitting at the front of the building and were able to escape.
Rescue workers were still searching through debris yesterday afternoon.
Some local residents speculated that recent heavy rain may have caused the collapse.
The exhibition hall was built in 1959 and was largely disused except for dances and other activities for retirees, the agency said.
Leshan is a popular tourist destination 100km southwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan Province, and famous for its Grand Buddha, carved into a cliff face and standing more than 70m high.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS