Dozens of people were trapped or missing on Saturday the day after a building collapsed in central China, the cause of which is still unknown.
The eight-story building, which housed a hotel, apartments and a cinema, collapsed on Friday afternoon in the city of Changsha.
At least 18 people were trapped late Saturday afternoon, authorities said. Another 39 remained unreachable, Changsha Mayor Zheng Jianxin told reporters.
No deaths have been announced so far.
“The situation of the missing persons is being thoroughly assessed,” the mayor said, as rescuers wearing orange protective helmets swarmed the scene.
According to city authorities, five people were rescued overnight from the collapsed structure.
Rescuers were trying to make their way through the rubble. They used circular saws to extricate several survivors.
State media showed firefighters cutting through a tangle of metal and concrete, while rescuers shouted in an attempt to communicate with survivors.
Some of the injured were carried on stretchers down a narrow alley, while sniffer dogs combed the area for signs of life.
The authorities have not yet given an explanation for this disaster.
State television CCTV nevertheless indicated that “tenants had made structural modifications to the premises to varying degrees”.
– Thorough investigation –
President Xi Jinping has ordered a full investigation into the cause of the collapse and called for a search for the victims “at any cost”, state media reported.
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 “guide rescue and emergency response operations”, according to an official statement released on Saturday.
This type of disaster occurs quite frequently in China, due to poor compliance with safety rules and a certain 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 16 people.
The explosion of a gas pipe in a residential area in June 2021 killed 25 people in Hubei province (center).
In the same month, 18 people were killed when a fire broke out at a martial arts school. All of the victims were boarding school students, according to state media.