China building collapse kills 17 workers

17 construction workers were killed after a two-storey building collapsed in China’s central Henan province, state media reported.

The building collapsed while workers were trying to prop up the second floor during renovations. 40 people were pulled from the debris including 17 killed and 23 injured — nine of them in serious condition, said authorities, and several people were taken into police custody.

Renovation work was being carried out on the foundations of the building when the accident happened, they said.

Many of the victims were crushed by falling chunks of the building, Wuyang People’s Hospital head Liu Jinshan said in an interview with the state broadcaster CCTV.

“When the patients came and were sent into intensive care unit, their injuries were really bad,” Liu said.

CCTV quoted a construction worker in hospital as saying workers had been using a hoisting jack to push up a corner of first floor of the two-storey building when the collapse happened. The building was built in the 1990s, the broadcaster said.

 The cause of the collapse was under investigation, he said.

One of the survivors from Friday's collapse told state-run CCTV that many of the workers had come from Nanyang city in south-west Henan province to work on the site.