BEIJING (REUTERS, AFP) - A building housing a canteen in south-western China’s Chongqing municipality collapsed on Friday (Jan 7) following an explosion suspected to have been caused by a gas leak, killing at least six, state television said.
As of 7pm local time, six bodies had been recovered from the site and nine people brought out alive, while 11 others were still trapped, it reported.
The blast at 12.10pm (0410 GMT) led to the collapse of a neighbourhood committee building housing a canteen, the state-run People’s Daily reported.
People having lunch at the time were trapped, state news agency Xinhua said.
The fire department posted a video on its official Weibo page showing orange-clad workers in hard hats climbing through a tangle of cables, bricks and concrete.
Some of the injured people have been taken to hospital for treatment, said Xinhua, without giving further details of their condition.
Footage posted on social media by state broadcaster CCTV showed smoke and dust billowing from the collapsed building.
The Ministry of Emergency Management has dispatched a team to the scene, in Chongqing’s Wulong district.
The local fire fighting department had sent 50 vehicles.
More than 150 firefighters and professional rescuers as well as a group of rescue dogs are racing against time to find the trapped people.
Heavy lifting and excavation equipment have also been sent to the scene.
Local authorities have set up an “on-site emergency response headquarters” to direct the rescue work and provide medical treatment, the People’s Daily reported.
An eyewitness told state-run Phoenix TV that the blast was “very scary... our windows have all been blown to pieces”.
Gas leaks and explosions are not uncommon in China, due to weak safety standards and corruption among officials tasked with enforcement.
In June, 25 people were killed in a gas blast that ripped through a residential compound and struck a busy two-storey building packed with shoppers.
Eight suspects, including the general manager of the company that owned the gas pipe, were detained after the government said “the company’s safety management system was unsound”.
The same month, 18 people were killed and more injured when a fire broke out at a martial arts school, with state media reporting that all the victims were boarding school pupils.
