SHANGHAI BUILDING COLLAPSE KILLS 10
Construction workers crushed under piles of concrete pillars
THE death toll in the collapse of a Shanghai commercial building that was undergoing renovation rose to 10 overnight after three more victims were added to the grim tally, the city government said yesterday.
About half of the low-rise building collapsed around midday on Thursday, crushing construction workers under piles of toppled concrete pillars and shattered wooden beams.
Authorities said 25 people had been found in the rubble, 10 of whom had succumbed to injuries.
The latest announcement on a city government social media account did not make clear whether any others were still missing, but added that search-and-rescue
work was “basically finished”.
Medical personnel were making “all-out efforts” to treat the injured, the announcement said.
Rescue personnel pulled bloodied and dust-coated workers out from the rubble throughout Thursday afternoon and evening, according to journalists at the scene.
The building had previously been used as a dealership for Mercedes-Benz cars, the National Emergency Ministry said.
But the property had changed hands and was being redeveloped as a mixed-use arts and innovation site, according to Chinese media reports.
POLITICAL leaders made last-gasp pitches to voters yesterday, on the eve of an election that polls show is going down to the wire.
“This will be the closest election we’ve seen in many, many years,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison predicted while campaigning in north Queensland, home to a swathe of marginal seats that could decide the outcome.
Weeks ago, the contest looked like it may be a rout for the centre-left Labor Party, which has long been leading Morrison’s conservative Liberal-National minority government in opinion polls.
But a final survey by Ipsos yesterday
showed Morrison’s coalition trailing Bill Shorten’s Labor 49 to 51 per cent, from 48 to 52 per cent two weeks ago.
In some battleground seats, the race is even tighter, with the electorate split 50-50.
“I don’t think anyone... thought this is where the election would be the day before,” Morrison said.
The 51-year-old, however, faced a difficult last few hours of campaigning, with the death of legendary Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
Charismatic and competent, Hawke’s reminiscing about his successful economic reforms has undercut Liberal’s central campaign claim that Labor cannot govern.
Morrison’s claim to champion secure borders was also put to the test when it was revealed that two people from Rwanda accused of murder were allowed into Australia in return for the US taking innocent refugees detained by his government.
Morrison defended their transfer saying the allegations against the two men were “reviewed by our security agencies and... not found to be upheld”.
Labor leader Shorten cut back on his campaign travels, choosing instead to stay in Sydney and talk about Hawke’s legacy.
“Sadly, he didn’t win the fight to be there on election night to see Labor form a government,” the Labor leader told reporters.
“Personally, it’s sad for me that I can’t show him that we can win and form a government, because I feel I’d be fulfilling a contract that I mentally made with him all those years ago.”
Elections in Australia, where voting is mandatory, are traditionally close, with former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal-National coalition in 2016 scraping through with 76 seats, two more than the majority needed for the lower house.
The country has had a revolving door of prime ministers in recent years, with a series of leaders voted into power in one election deposed before the next polls three years later.