State Council investigates Changsha building collapse

The State Council, China's Cabinet, has established a team to investigate the collapse of a building that left 53 people dead in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.

The team will identify the liabilities in a "comprehensive" manner and give suggestions on punishment, the ministry said in a media release on Friday morning. All those responsible for the accident will be held accountable.

Headed by the ministry, the team consists of experts on construction, safety management and law, it noted.

The eight-story building collapsed at 12:24 pm last Friday in Changsha's Wangcheng district. Aside from apartments, the building also housed catering and hotel businesses.

As of 3 am on that Friday, all 63 people trapped in the rubble had been found. Of them, ten were saved, local authorities told a news conference on Friday morning.

On Sunday, local police said they had detained nine people in connection with the accident, including the owner of the building, people in charge of its construction and five workers with a local engineering company, which was suspected to have produced fake safety appraisal documents for the hotel on the building's fourth, fifth and sixth floors.

The building only had six floors when it was completed in 2012. Two stories were added to it in 2018, preliminary investigations have found.