A ceiling collapsed at a school gymnasium at the No.34 Middle School in Qiqihar city, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, on July 23, 2023. Photo: Sina Weibo
A collapsed ceiling at a school gymnasium in Qiqihar city, NE China's Heilongjiang Province, on Sunday has led to 11 deaths. The responsible person of the construction unit has been taken into custody by the public security bureau.
As of Monday morning, the rescue operations drew a close as the last trapped person has been found showing no vital signs. According to media reports, there were 19 people in the gymnasium when the ceiling suddenly collapsed, four of them escaped while 15 were trapped.
Previous reports suggested that a total of five people were showing no vital signs upon rescue, six died after treatment, and four people were in a stable condition.
The preliminary investigation showed that the construction unit illegally placed perlite on the roof of the gymnasium during the construction of the teaching complex building adjacent to the gymnasium. Following heavy rainfall, perlite soaked in water and gained weight, resulting in increased roof load and collapse.
An investigation remains underway. The individual responsible forthe construction unit of the teaching complex building of the school has been taken into custody by officials.
The city's fire rescue detachment command center received the report of the incident at the No.34 Middle School in Longsha district ataround 3 pm, according to media reports.
The command center immediately dispatched 39 fire engines, 159 fire rescue personnel and four rescue dogs to the scene. Related departments including the medical care, public security, emergency response and power supply also deployed emergency response assets.
Anearthquake rescue team from Daqing of Heilongjiang was also deployed by the provincial fire and rescue corps to join the rescue.
When fire and rescue forces arrived at the scene at 3:10 pm, they found that the entire ceiling structure of the school gymnasium had collapsed.
Rescuepersonnel immediately used demolition tools to cut and clean the collapsed building components and searched for trapped people with sniffer dogs and life detectors.
As of 5:30 pm, eight people had been rescued.
According to media reports, some female players from the school's volleyball team were training at the gymnasium when the tragedy occurred.
A video clip showedthat rescue personnel found the coach of the volleyball team who was trapped while still calling the names of the volleyball team members.
According to media reports, the collapsed school gymnasium occupied an area of 1,200 square meters. Its walls were constructed in a grid structure and its ceiling was made of a concrete slab.
A government representative from the Longsha district said that the collapse of the ceiling might have been caused by the rainstorm and strong windshitting the city.
According to media reports, the gymnasium was built in 1997 with an investment of 2.3 million yuan ($320,070). It used to belong to the No.1 Middle School of Qiqihar. The gymnasium has an auditorium of over 300 seats, a gym, a shower room, a toilet, two offices, a basketball court, a volleyball court, a badminton court and a table tennis court.
The No.34 Middle School was relocated into the campus between 2006 and 2007.
Wang Yixin, executive vice governor of Heilongjiang Province, held a video conference on safety standards on Sunday evening, reporting and reflecting on the recent security incidents and making deployment on the effective measures to take to resolutely curb the trend of frequent accidents.
Wang said the occurrence of multiple safety incidents has created a negative social impact and exposed serious problems, stressing the importance of doing a good job of uncovering hidden danger and carrying out special rectification of structural weaknesses in buildings and infrastructure.
Global Times
