Fifty-three people died in a building collapse in central China, authorities said yesterday, announcing the end of the rescue mission in a disaster which has been blamed on illegal construction.
The commercial building in Changsha caved in on Friday last week, prompting more than six days of painstaking attempts to pull survivors free from the mass of rubble and twisted metal.
“The search and rescue work at the Changsha building collapse site has been completed,” state broadcaster China Central Television quoted city officials as saying.
Photo: AFP
“The trapped and incommunicado people from the accident scene have all been found ... 10 people were rescued and 53 people died,” it said.
The 10th person pulled alive from the rubble just after midnight on Thursday had been buried in debris for nearly six days, state media reported earlier.
Changsha Communist Party Secretary Wu Guiying (吳桂英) led other city officials in apologizing for the incident and bowed in commemoration of the victims during a news conference.
They “offered a sincere apology to society” and “expressed deep condolences to all the families of the victims and injured,” state media said, adding that Wu mentioned her “extreme distress” and “unparalleled self-blame.”
Officials are to “fully cooperate with higher departments to thoroughly investigate the cause of the accident ... and give a responsible explanation to the whole of society,” Wu said.
The toll from the collapse rose from 26 on Thursday evening. The block had contained apartments, a hotel and a cinema.
The flattened structure, which has left a gaping hole in a dense Changsha streetscape, created a mess of debris and crumbled concrete beams.
A woman who survived about 88 hours in the debris told state media that she was studying on her bed at the time of the collapse and managed to stay alive by holding on to a small amount of water and using her quilt to keep warm.
Rescuers had been able to find live victims with the help of sniffer dogs, life detectors and drones, as well as from the shouting and knocking of survivors, Xinhua news agency said.
Eleven people — including the building’s owner and a team of safety inspectors — have been detained in connection with the collapse, including two people suspected of engaging in “illegal alteration” of the building, Changsha authorities said.
Officials have said that surveyors falsified a safety audit of the building.
State media have identified the building as a “self-built residential structure,” meaning it was built by individuals or companies with no state funding.
The Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development on Sunday announced a safety inspection drive for “self-built housing” nationwide.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last week ordered a thorough investigation into the cause of the collapse, an indication of the severity of the disaster.
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