On the 31st of May, a two-story building in Baisha Street, Longzhou Town, Longzhou County, Chongzuo City, Guangxi Province, collapsed in an instant, which included dormitories for an ethnic minority primary school. Two college students from Guilin Normal University who were doing an internship at the ethnic minority primary school tragically lost their lives.
Surveillance footage shows that the building collapsed rapidly in less than 5 seconds, creating a huge cloud of dust and turning into rubble immediately. There were many students around the site when the incident occurred.
On the 31st, the Longzhou County Government in Chongzuo City, Guangxi Province reported that at 11:56 in the noon, the building at 106-6 Baisha Street in Longzhou Town collapsed, with initial confirmation that 4 people were trapped.
According to the latest report by Xinjing Daily, information from local officials revealed that the second floor of the building involved was the dormitory of the ethnic minority primary school. Prior to the incident, interns from a university and volunteer teachers had stayed there. The two casualties in the building collapse were college students who were doing an internship at the ethnic minority primary school.
A staff member from the ethnic minority primary school mentioned that the involved college students were from Guilin.
On June 1st, Guilin Normal University disclosed that the two victims were students from the Education Department of the university.
The former tenant of the building, Liu Yuan (pseudonym), stated that in 2019, she rented the commercial space of 10 rooms on the second floor of the building until she moved out on April 1st this year.
Liu Yuan mentioned that during her tenancy, she noticed quality issues in the building, including leaks in the roof and cracks in the floor. Before she moved out, a person in charge from the ethnic minority school informed her that the second floor would be renovated for school staff use.
A nearby resident of the incident area stated that the first floor of the collapsed building housed two shops, one being a stationary store and the other a convenience store.
Liu Yuan recalled that a minute before the collapse, the couple who owned the stationary store had run out of their shop. She remembered that among the 10 shops on the first floor, the stationary store occupied 4 spaces, as the store owner had connected several rooms together for use.