North Korea apartment building collapses, hundreds feared dead

North Korea's state media has reported an "unimaginable" accident at an apartment construction site in Pyongyang, which had resulted in an unspecified number of casualties.

North Korea has apologised to bereaved families after the apartment building collapsed in Pyongyang, possibly killing hundreds, the official KCNA news agency says.

It is a rare admission of fallibility from the reclusive state, but no death toll was given.

Pyongyang's expression of "profound consolation and apology" was the first official news of the disaster, which happened in the Phyongchon district of the North Korean capital last Tuesday.

"The construction of an apartment house was not done properly and officials supervised and controlled it in an irresponsible manner," said the statement from KCNA.

The statement said the collapse of the apartment building "claimed casualties" but did not give any indication of how many had been killed or injured.

A rescue operation ended on Saturday, it said.

A South Korean official confirmed a 23-storey building collapsed in Pyongyang.

He said the building was believed to have accommodated 92 households or families, and it was common for North Koreans to move into new buildings before construction was completed.

"Hundreds are presumed to be dead, assuming that each family has an average of four members," he said.

No source for the information was provided.

The KCNA statement said North Korean authorities put emergency measures in place to rescue people from the collapsed building and to treat the injured.

It said North Korea's minister of people's security, Choe Pu Il, had "repented", admitting he had failed to supervise the project adequately, "thereby causing an unimaginable accident".

The rare apology from the North came as South Korean president Park Geun-hye's administration faces criticism for its handling of a ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people, many of them schoolchildren, last month.

North Korea launched a vitriolic attack of Ms Park in the wake of that disaster.

"It is common in North Korea that people move into a new apartment building before construction officially ends," an official told AFP.

The official said 92 families were believed to be living in the collapsed building, and the final death toll was likely to be "considerable".

About 2.5 million people - mostly political elites including senior party members or those with privileged background - are believed to live in Pyongyang.

Pyongyang residents are known to enjoy better access to electricity, food, goods and other services than those living elsewhere in the impoverished and isolated country.

Sunday 18 May 2015

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2014-05-18/north-korea-apartment-building-collapses-hundreds-feared-dead/1312800

Pipeline collapse in coal mines kills 11, leaves 2 missing in northwestern China

A pipeline in a coal mine in northwestern China has collapsed, killing 11 people, the official Xinhua News Agency and a local work safety official said Saturday.

The official at the provincial work safety bureau, who only gave his last name Han, said that two more people were missing from the accident that took place Wednesday in the city of Yulin in the northwestern province of Shaanxi. He said odds were slim they would be found alive.

Xinhua said 37 people were in a shaft when a cement pipeline collapsed in the state-owned mine that was under construction. It said rescued recovered two bodies and pulled out 24 people alive Wednesday.

China has some of the world's deadliest mines, killing more than 100 people since the start of the year, but they are getting safer with stricter work safety enforcement.

Sunday 18 May 2014

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/the-canadian-press/140517/pipeline-collapse-coal-mines-kills-11-leaves-2-missing-north

Mozambique: Death toll in Memba mine collapse rises

The known death toll from the collapse of an illegal gold mine in Memba district, in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula, has reached nine, according to a report in Saturday's issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”.

The Minister of Mineral Resources, Esperanca Bias, travelled to Memba on Saturday, to accompany the attempts to find survivors and recover bodies.

Since the collapse occurred on Monday morning, the chances of finding anybody still alive must be regarded as remote. In the early stages of the rescue operation, 15 people were pulled out still alive.

One of them was seriously injured, and is currently undergoing medical treatment in the Memba health centre.

It is feared that the final death toll could be as anywhere between 40 and 70. Nobody seems to know exactly how many people were inside the mine when it collapsed.

The bodies that have been recovered so far were in an advanced state of decomposition, and had to be buried immediately in the vicinity of the mine. Most of them could not be identified, since they were not carrying any documents.

A month ago the Memba authorities had ordered the closure of the mine, which is in an area known as Namajuba, and were preparing to remove thousands of artisanal miners digging for gold in the area. Clearly their orders were ignored, with tragic results.

The Memba district permanent secretary, Felisberta Joaquim, told “Noticias” that most of those digging in the mine were from Nampula, and the neigbouring provinces of Cabo Delgado and Zambezia, but some had come from Tanzania.

Sunday 18 May 2014

http://allafrica.com/stories/201405170193.html