Zhejiang | Housing collapse leaves nine buried

These photos taken by cellphone yesterday show rescuers working at the accident site in Wencheng County, Wenzhou City

Nine people were buried in the collapse of a group of homes in eastern China yesterday morning, a Chinese rescue official and state media reported.

Four homes tumbled in the city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province, just south of the commercial hub of Shanghai, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Xinhua said crews were working carefully because the collapsed homes, each between four and five stories tall, were attached to buildings that had remained standing. Huang Guoku, a traffic control official in Wenzhou’s Baizhuangji township, confirmed the Xinhua report and said as many as 300 rescuers were on the scene.

No immediate cause was given for the collapse and Xinhua said there had been no reports of extreme weather in the area over recent days.

In October, 22 people were killed in Wenzhou when a cluster of decrepit homes collapsed, apparently because of poor construction and the building of additional levels on unstable foundations.

Meanwhile, a total of 13,796 fires occurred during China’s week-long Spring Festival holiday, killing 39 people and forcing the evacuation of 10,523 others, the Ministry of Public Security said as quoted by Xinhua.

The fires resulted in direct economic losses of 44.63 million yuan (about USD6.49 million), marking a 54.1 percent drop compared with the same period last year, the ministry said in a statement.

The number of fires and fire casualties decreased by 11.8 percent and 26.4 percent respectively year-on-year, it said. No fire claimed more than five lives during the holiday.

According to Xinhua, fires are usually caused by setting off fireworks and firecrackers during the holiday as the Chinese believed the noise will drive away bad spirits and bring good luck.

However, sales of fireworks have dropped in recent years in cities amid pollution concerns and government restrictions. Nationwide, 444 cities have banned fireworks and 764 other cities imposed restrictions on setting off fireworks, according to the ministry. MDT/Agencies