Dorm Accident (Photo : Xinhua)
The bad weather that has been battering Guangdong Province with heavy rainfall, hail, thunderstorms and wind gusts the past three days has taken its toll on an employee dormitory when strong wind blew a steel gantry that fell on the accommodation.
The accident happened at 5 a.m. on Wednesday when most of the 139 construction workers were still sleeping inside the 200-square-meter building. The 80-ton gantry fell onto and crushed the dorm and buried the employees under, killing 18 of them, reported The South China Morning Post.
Another 15 construction workers had minor injuries and were discharged from the hospital on the same day, 18 more received treatment for lacerations and fractions, with four are still in critical condition. But 88 workers evacuated the damaged accommodation on their own with no injuries.
The owner of the construction site is CCCC Fourth Harbour Engineering, subsidiary of state-owned China Communications Construction Company which is into prefabricated buildings. Luo Bn, deputy secretary-general of the Dongguan municipal authorities and spokesperson of the rescue team, said that CCCC Fourth Harbour Engineering set aside 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) to deal with the problems caused by the accident, including shouldering the medical treatment of the injured workers.
Hu Chunhua, secretary of the Guangdong provincial Communist Party, ordered officials to speed up the rescue operations which involved 40 fire trucks and 250 firefighter from Shenzhen, Dongguan and Guangzhou.
