Collapsed Shed Kills 22 Migrant Workers in East China

Floods caused the death of 22 migrant workers and seven others were injured when rushing flooding water pushed down a wall and caused a work shed to collapse Tuesday morning at a construction site in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province in east China.

Official sources said the accident occurred at the construction site in the Shitang Village of Banshan Town, Gongshu District at about 4:40 a.m. when floods from the nearby mountain knocked down a wall that was part of the makeshift shed, which caused it to collapse.

The leaders of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the provincial government, Zhang Dejiang and Chai Songyue, and major officials of the city rushed to the site to supervise the rescue and relief work soon after the accident.

About 350 policemen and firefighters were mobilized to clear up the debris, which ended at about 8 a.m., the sources said.

Xinhua investigations show that the migrant workers were from Chongqing, Sichuan, Henan and Anhui.

The injured persons have been hospitalized for treatment, while the cause of the accident was still being investigated at the press time.

The provincial government has issued an emergency warning after the accident, urging all local governments and authorities to prevent similar accidents from happening again.






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