{"id":220045,"date":"2019-06-23T22:11:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T02:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=220045"},"modified":"2019-06-23T22:27:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T02:27:01","slug":"cambodia-pm-to-oversee-rescue-operation-at-building-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/06\/23\/cambodia-pm-to-oversee-rescue-operation-at-building-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"Cambodia PM to oversee rescue operation at building collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fhunsencambodia%2Fposts%2F2293980703983747&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"928\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nSIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia \u2014 Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Sunday that he was heading to the seaside resort town where a seven-story building under construction collapsed, killing at least 19 workers and injuring 24.<\/p>\n<p>Hun Sen said he would oversee the rescue operation at the site in Sihanoukville, where the building collapsed early Saturday on top of dozens of workers sleeping inside. Rescuers have been digging through the twisted metal and concrete rubble in search of anyone buried, with the latest body pulled out Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>Provincial authorities said as of Sunday afternoon, half of the debris at the site had been cleared. Authorities, meanwhile, have questioned four Chinese who were involved with the project.<\/p>\n<p>Construction workers said the unfinished building doubled as their housing, with the crew spending nights on the second floor. Nhor Chandeun and his wife were asleep when at around 4 a.m. Saturday they heard a loud noise and the building crumbled on top of them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the workers were asleep,\u201d the 31-year-old said from a hospital in the city. \u201cA moment before the building collapsed it was vibrating and then it was falling down. But it was too quick to escape.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training said that 30 workers were at the site when the building collapsed, but Nhor Chandeun said there were about 55-60 people inside the building.<\/p>\n<p>Yun Min, the governor of Preah Sihanouk province, said the building was owned by a Chinese investor who leased land for a condominium \u2014 one of many Chinese projects in the thriving beach resort. Provincial authorities said in a statement that four Chinese nationals involved in the construction have been detained while an investigation into the collapse is carried out.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t immediately clear what caused the collapse.<\/p>\n<p>Nhor Chandeun and his wife were trapped for 12 hours before rescuers found them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy wife and I kept calling for help,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were shouting and shouting but there was no sound replying to us and we presumed that we would die under the rubble.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFortunately the rescuers found me in time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>In Bangkok,\u00a0Southeast Asian\u00a0leaders expressed their condolences to Cambodia, whose leader was among heads of state attending the annual summit of the Association of\u00a0Southeast Asian\u00a0Nations in the Thai capital. The 10-nation regional bloc announced a new project for the region to respond better to disasters and emergencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Sopheng Cheang reported from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Associated Press writer Kaweewit Kaewjinda in Bangkok contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia \u2014 Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Sunday that he was heading to the seaside resort town where &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":220046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-heng-sinith","mauthors-sopheng-cheang","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220045"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220057,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220045\/revisions\/220057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}