China building collapse death toll rises to 53: state media

Author: AFP

BEIJING: Chinese authorities have raised the death toll from a building collapse in central China to 53, state media reported Friday, announcing the end of the rescue mission.

The commercial building in Changsha city caved in last Friday prompting over 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 CCTV said.

“The trapped and incommunicado people from the accident scene have all been found… ten people were rescued and 53 people died.”

City official Wu Guiying apologised for the accident during a Friday briefing, saying she was “extremely distressed” and offered a “sincere apology to society”.

The tenth person pulled alive from the rubble just after midnight on Thursday had been buried in debris for nearly six days, state media reported earlier.

The confirmed number of dead from the collapse had previously been twenty-six as of 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.

Building collapses are not uncommon in China due to weak safety and construction standards, as well as corruption among officials tasked with enforcement.