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CAMBODIA-BUILDING-COLLAPSE
Cambodia building collapse toll rises to 29 as search enters 3rd day
KEP, Cambodia, Jan 5, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll from a building
collapse in southern Cambodia rose to 29 on Sunday morning, as a frantic
search for the dead and injured entered a third day.
Hundreds of soldiers and rescuers worked through the night using
excavators, drills and power saws to clear concrete after an under-
construction seven-storey hotel in seaside Kep province crumbled to the
ground on Friday.
Officials had initially estimated that 30 workers remained trapped under
the flattened structure.
But provincial spokesman Ros Udong told AFP the number of injured and dead
was higher than anticipated, as more bodies were recovered in the early hours
of Sunday.
Apart from the 29 dead, Udong said, 23 survivors were pulled out.
Five children were among the dead, according to rescuers.
Cambodia is undergoing a construction boom, with hotels, high-rises and
casinos springing up under little regulatory oversight.
The tough — and often dangerous — work is undertaken by an estimated
200,000 construction workers, mostly unskilled, reliant on day wages and not
protected by union rules, according to the International Labour Organisation.
Worker advocacy groups point to low safety standards that raise the risk of
accidents at construction sites — which often serve as the temporary homes
for the labourers and their families.
Worker Ei Kosal told AFP on Saturday that he, his wife and two other women
were having a meal on site when the building collapsed.
Their two companions were crushed and immediately killed.
“I did not expect to survive… it’s like I have just been reborn,” Kosal
said while recuperating at the hospital.
In June, 28 people died after the collapse of a building under construction
in Sihanoukville, a beach town flush with Chinese investment as Cambodia
seeks to make it the “New Macau”.
BSS/AFP/MSY/1124 hrs