The discovery of new bodies has raised the death toll from a building collapse in China last week to 26, state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday (May 5), citing local officials. .
The eight-story building, which housed a hotel, apartments and a cinema, collapsed on April 29 in the city of Changsha (center) for an as yet undetermined reason. Authorities have so far reported five deaths.
The hundreds of rescuers mobilized are still without news of around twenty people, according to a count by the official news agency New China. A woman was also extracted alive Thursday from the rubble, more than 131 hours after the disaster, or five and a half days, said CCTV, citing local officials. This brings the number of survivors so far to ten.
Public television broadcast the footage of the rescue live via an internet video stream. We see firefighters in full protective suits on a pile of rubble, placing a woman on a stretcher. The latter is then taken care of by caregivers and placed in an ambulance. Chinese media have broadcast images in recent days of rescuers, equipped with heavy equipment, trying to make their way through the debris of the collapsed building, which left a gaping hole. Eleven people, including the building owner and a team of security inspectors, were arrested in connection with the building collapse, according to Changsha authorities.
Search for victims “at any cost”
Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered a full investigation into the cause of the collapse and called for a search for victims ” whatever the price “, according to state media. A senior Communist Party official was dispatched to the scene, which testifies to the gravity of the disaster. State Councilor Wang Yong, appointed by the central government, was sent to lead a team to “to guide rescue and emergency response operations”according to an official statement released on Saturday.
This type of disaster occurs frequently in China, due to poor compliance with safety rules and the laxity of the services supposed to ensure their proper application. In January, an explosion probably triggered by a gas leak hit a building in the city of Chongqing, located some 1,700 kilometers west of Shanghai, killing at least sixteen people. The explosion of a gas pipe in a residential area in June 2021 killed twenty-five people in Hubei province. In the same month, eighteen people were killed when a fire broke out at a martial arts school. All the victims were boarding school students.