The Shanghai apartment lies on its side yesterday. Photo: Zhao Yun

By Deng Jingyin

A construction worker was killed in Shanghai Saturday when the apartment building he was working on collapsed, the Xinmin Evening News reported yesterday.

The man, identified as a 28-year-old surnamed Xiao from Anhui Province, was killed when a 13-story building at the Lotus Riverside development in the city’s Minhang district toppled over almost intact at about 5:30 am.

Other buildings in the complex were undamaged, the report said.

“It collapsed entirely in about 30 seconds and all the workers had to run out,” an eyewitness was quoted as saying.

Xiao was one of six people inside the building at the time, but no other casualties were reported.

Nine persons including from the building’s developer, builder, and the construction team were detained by the local authority, the information office of the district government told Xinhua yesterday.

Roads and shops around the building were closed Saturday, and the residents of 132 apartments were moved to temporary settlements. They were allowed to return home yesterday afternoon, the municipal government said at a press conference.

A team of investigators has taken soil samples for lab analysis and 13 experts from Shanghai research departments are providing technical support, it said.

As none of the adjacent buildings had suffered any problems with subsidence, the risk of a secondary collapse was low, the government said earlier.

“Several underground garages have been built in this community, but I don’t know if they had anything to do with the collapse,” a construction worker was quoted as saying.

The investigation into the cause of the accident should be swift and “the public should be told what happened,” an official surnamed Wang from the Shanghai Construction and Transportation Commission told the Global Times yesterday.

As of yesterday, about 400 people who had bought apartments at Lotus Riverside had applied for refunds, the Shanghai Evening Post reported.

The housing project, developed by the Shanghai Meidu Real Estate Development Company, was intended to comprise 629 units, 503 of which had already been sold, the Shanghai Municipal Real Estate Trading Center said.

The government met with 255 households who had purchased flats in the building, promising them that their legal rights and benefits would not be affected.

The Global Times’ calls to the development company and sales office went unanswered yesterday.