China Building Collapse: 17 Killed, 23 Injured In Henan Province, Cause Under Investigation

A two-storey building collapsed in China’s central Henan province Friday killing 17 people and injuring 23, officials said, according to reports. The building in the Wuyang County town of Beiwudu collapsed during renovations, officials said Saturday.

The country’s state news agency Xinhua reported that rescue officials pulled out 40 workers from the debris while officials arrested several people in connection to the collapse. The cause of the accident is being investigated, the Associated Press reported, citing an official.

The building was reportedly made in the 1990s and came crumbling down when construction workers were trying to lift the building’s foundation, Xinhua reported. According to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP), video footage from local news networks showed workers skimming the rubble at the site to search for more survivors.

While the country is witnessing a new boom in construction projects, it still faces corruption as a major hurdle to regulations. In July, a shoe factory building in the city of Wenling in Zhejiang province collapsed, killing 11 people. In May, a fire at a nursing home left 38 dead and the country’s safety watchdog blamed poor construction and lack of proper safety measures for the incident, according to AFP.

In April, a fire broke out at a Chinese chemical plant and raged for nearly 50 hours, leading to 30,000 people being evacuated. Last November, a coal mine accident in northeastern part of the country led to the death of 26 workers, AFP reported in July.