A man buried in the debris was found holding a 3-year-old girl in his arm 14 hours after the collapse.(Photo:China News Service/Yu Genling)
Six survivors, including a 3-year-old girl, were sent to three local hospitals after a weak residential building collapsed in the Lucheng district of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.
The girl was found alive at 6:20 pm on Monday, after being buried for 14 hours.
Her parents, who both died, lay above her. The father's body was holding up a 1-meter-wide, 20-centimeter-thick piece of concrete. That provided enough space for the girl to survive, said Sun Jing, one of the rescuers.
Rescue teams removed rubble by hand for 20 minutes to extract the girl, cleaning her face and covering her face with an oxygen mask.
"When I picked her up from the rubble, she suddenly grabbed my arm tightly. That touched me. I comforted her and continued to talk to her," Sun said.
The girl regained consciousness in the hospital and told the nurse that her name is Tong Tong.
The search for missing people buried under the debris was completed early on Tuesday, with 22 people confirmed dead, a local official said at a news briefing. Most of them have been identified.
Rescue operations concluded at about 1 am on Tuesday. Twenty-eight people had been pulled from the debris, but only six survived.
According to Zhang Chongmin, the Lucheng district chief, the poor quality of the foundation was responsible for the disaster.
"These six-story houses were built by local peasants in the 1980s," he said, "The weak foundation couldn't hold."
"We have pulled down five other similar buildings to avoid potential danger," Zhang added.
Zhang Geng, mayor of Wenzhou city, told reporters at the briefing that the city government is looking at the possibility of demolishing a number of buildings.
"We also plan to speed up urban village reconstruction to eliminate hidden trouble," Zhang said.
