A woman was rescued from the rubble of a building that collapsed in central China on Friday, the sixth survivor found since the disaster of unknown origin, according to Chinese media.
After 50 hours of work, rescue teams released the dust -covered woman, then carried her on a stretcher according to footage from public CCTV television.
Dozens of people were trapped or missing on Saturday, days after an eight-story building collapsed in Changsha city: At least 18 people were still trapped by the end of the day, after five survivors were found, while 39 people were unreachable, according to authorities.
The building contains a hotel, apartments and a cinema.
Changsha police said nine people were arrested on Sunday in connection with the accident, including the building owner and security inspectors who allegedly forged the results of the building inspection.
According to city mayor Zheng Jianxin, more than 700 rescuers were sent to the scene and there is no effort to save to find those trapped under rubble, a crumpled metal and concrete that firefighters struggled with, according to state media footage.
President Xi Jinping called on Saturday for a search at all costs and ordered a full investigation into the cause of the collapse.
A senior Communist Party official was dispatched to the scene – an indication of the severity of the disaster.
Chinese Minister of Emergency Management Huang Ming urged officials to completely eliminate all kinds of hidden security risks at a meeting on Saturday.
Building collapses are not uncommon in China, due to poor safety and construction standards, but also corruption in officials responsible for monitoring those standards.
In January, an explosion caused by a suspected gas leak destroyed a building in the vast municipality of Chongqing in the southwest of the country, killing at least 16 people.
Source: Radio-Canada
