China pavement collapse kills newlyweds, father and 11-year-old son
‘They did no wrong, they were just walking on the street’
All four people who were trapped in a pavement collapse in Sichuan province on Sunday afternoon have now been confirmed dead. Two of them were newlyweds and the other two a father and his 11-year-old son.
More than 400 rescuers and 100 excavators with rock drills spent more than two days searching for the victims who disappeared when the sinkhole opened up in the busy commercial district of Dazhou city in southwestern China.
The father and son were found dead on the spot, while the couple were declared dead at the hospital.
The 45-year-old father’s eldest son, surnamed Tang, told Chinese news portal Thepaper.cn that he was chatting with his father via a mobile app when the phone suddenly cut out. He tried to contact his father repeatedly after the connection snapped, with no response.
Tang, who works as an auxiliary police officer in Dazhou, said he had asked the local authorities to explain why the road collapsed.
“They did no wrong, they were just walking on the street,” he said.