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 yesterday.
The collapse happened on Friday afternoon in the town of Beiwudu, Wuyang County, Henan Province, the county government said on its Web site.
Forty people were pulled from the debris by yesterday morning, including 17 killed and 23 injured — nine of whom were in serious condition, the county government said.
Photo: Reuters
People suspected of being responsible for the collapse were taken into police custody, Wuyang County Government said.
Many of the people who died were crushed by falling chunks of the building and at least one of those injured had spinal injuries that might result in paralysis, Wuyang People’s Hospital head Liu Jinshan (劉晉山) said in an interview with state broadcaster CCTV.
The report also showed images of rescue workers 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 the 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.
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