Deadly building site collapse in China stops work at Country Garden sites
- Six workers killed in Guangxi construction lift crash, prompting orders for inspections across the region
- Fatal incident comes as China tries to get back to work amid the coronavirus pandemic
A top Chinese property developer has stopped work at all of its projects in a southwestern region after six workers died at a construction site on Saturday night.
The workers – five men and a woman – were killed when a construction lift crashed at Country Garden’s Phoenix City project in Yulin in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, the region’s building safety authority said.
Footage posted online showed firefighters removing bodies from a tangle of steel frames.
Country Garden, China’s biggest developer by sales, said on Monday that it had halted construction and ordered safety assessments of all building cranes and lifts at its Guangxi sites.
“[We should] learn the painful lessons of this accident, strengthen management of construction sites, … and resolutely prevent such accidents from happening again,” the company said, adding that it was deeply saddened by the incident.
Guangxi’s construction safety authority urged all cities and counties in the region to immediately inspect building cranes and equipment for safety.