PHNOM PENH, Jan 3 — At least two people were killed and more than a dozen injured when a seven-storey building under construction collapsed in southern Cambodia today trapping workers under the rubble, police told AFP.
The building in coastal Kep province was meant to be a hotel but crumpled at around 4:30pm, with video circulating online showing concrete floors sandwiched together as firefighters and an excavator arrived.
Cambodian leader Hun Sen said in a Facebook post this evening he was travelling to the site.
Around 30 people were believed to be trapped but 17 were pulled out and sent to hospital where two died, Ros Udong, spokesman for the Kep provincial administration, told AFP by phone.
Deadly accidents plague the kingdom’s poorly regulated building sector even as the country has enjoyed a construction boom.
In June nearly 30 people died after the collapse of a building under construction in Sihanoukville, a beach town undergoing a Chinese investment bonanza.
Last month at least three workers died and more than a dozen others were seriously injured after an under-construction dining hall at a temple collapsed in the tourist town of Siem Reap.
There are an estimated 200,000 construction workers in Cambodia, most unskilled, reliant on day wages and not protected by union rules, according to the International Labour Organization. — AFP
