Four Detained Over China Mall Collapse

B E I J I N G, Dec. 3 -- Chinese police detained fourpeople today as they launched an inquiry into the collapseof a popular shopping mall in southern China thought to havekilled scores of people.

Among the four was the owner of the one-story mall in theHoujie suburb of Dongguan city which crumbled to the ground onFriday as construction workers were illegally adding two morefloors, official state media said.

It was the latest accident in a building industry plaguedby shoddy work that Premier Zhu Rongji has angrily called “beancurd construction.”

At Least Eight Dead

The official Xinhua news agency put the toll at eight deadand 32 injured.

But some witnesses and local media suggested many more wereburied when the mall collapsed as about 200 people milledaround its 20 shops, including photograph booths, restaurantsand telephone kiosks.

One factory worker who witnessed the collapse said rescuerstold him more than 20 bodies were pulled out on Friday night.

Officials gave up hopes of finding survivors the nextmorning morning and today construction workers and tractorsbegan to clear up the site, strewn with plastic chairs andmerchandise from the shops, before a crowd of several hundredonlookers.

“The investigation is going on,” an official in Dongguancity told Reuters by telephone.

Illegal Construction

Police had detained the owner of the shopping mall, itsdesigner and contractor, and the head of Chiling village whereit was built, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

It did not say if they would be charged and local officialsdeclined to comment.

But Xinhua said local authorities had not approved theconstruction work and neither the designer nor the contractorhad licenses.

Initial investigations suggested the building’sfoundations, built over a drainage ditch, subsided under theweight of the extra storys, other state media said.

One owner of a telephone booth in the mall said his wifealerted the building’s owner just minutes before the collapsewhen she felt the floor sinking beneath her. She escaped withminor injuries.