China Evergrande’s shares take a hit after building construction accident in Wuhan claims six lives
- Evergrande is involved in a massive tourism project in Badeng New City in Wuhan
- Company says it is cooperating with the authorities and will take measures to improve safety checks at its construction site
Shares of China Evergrande Group fell more than 5 per cent in Hong Kong on Tuesday after six people were killed and five others were injured when one of its buildings under construction at an upcoming tourism resort collapsed in Wuhan.
The municipal government’s crisis management bureau said that emergency workers spent 24 hours rescuing 11 people trapped under the rubble after the accident on Sunday. All of them were in stable condition. It added that it would now focus its efforts on investigating the accident and cleaning up the site.
Evergrande, China third-largest home builder, is building a massive leisure and tourism project in Badeng New City, in the central mainland city of Wuhan, Hubei province. Wuhan is also at the centre of an outbreak of an unidentified form of pneumonia which has so far seen 59 people admitted to hospital in the city.
The project is being developed by Wuhan Badengcheng Investment, which is backed by Evergrande. It sits on a site measuring 6.7 million square metres, which was bought for 5.6 billion yuan (US$800 million) in 2017.
“We have held urgent meetings since yesterday regarding the incident, including compensation and safety checks at the site,” Evergrande said in a statement on Tuesday.
The company, which hopes to become an electric-car powerhouse and take on the likes of Tesla in China, said the accident resulted from the collapse of scaffolding at the construction site.