Bangkok:
Police in Thailand detained four Chinese nationals on Sunday for unlawfully entering the site of an under-construction building that collapsed after a powerful earthquake in Chatuchak District last week. The police said these men were trying to retrieve documents from the building site.
A Chinese-backed construction firm is being investigated over the collapse of the 30-story under-construction high-rise during Friday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar. The unfinished building crumbled in seconds, sending a cloud of dust and debris into the air and trapping dozens under the rubble.
Police Major General Nopasin Poolswat, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said that four Chinese nationals were apprehended for illegally removing 32 files of documents from the rear of the collapsed State Audit Office (SAO) building, without permission, according to a report by the National Thailand.
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After the powerful quake, the Bangkok Governor declared the area of the building collapse a disaster zone, thereby designating it as a restricted area where no one was allowed to enter without authorization. However, the police said that on Saturday, they received information about some individuals removing documents from the site.
Upon investigation, they located one of the Chinese men near the incident site, who claimed he was the project manager for a building construction project.
During the probe, it was confirmed that the apprehended man had a valid work permit and that his company was employed by a joint venture with Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited, the contractor for the building under construction.
Police also located three other men and confiscated 32 documents they were carrying, which included various types of paperwork, the National Thailand report said.
The four Chinese individuals told police that they were subcontractors working for a contractor under Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited. They said they entered the area to retrieve the documents that were needed for an insurance claim and were stored in a container that was being used as a temporary office by the company.
After completing the questioning, the police temporarily released the suspects. But, later on Sunday, authorities from the Chatuchak District Office filed a complaint against five Chinese nationals for violating the public announcement by entering the building site and removing blueprints and other documents from the collapsed SAO building.
As a result, the police will proceed with legal action against the four individuals. The fifth individual, their employer, is under investigation, and further actions will follow.
Bangkok Building Collapse
According to news agency AFP, as of Sunday, 17 deaths have been confirmed, with 32 injured and 76 still unaccounted for – most of them construction workers from the site of the collapsed building. Search and rescue teams continue working under intense heat to locate possible survivors.
Despite Bangkok’s skyline being filled with high-rise buildings under construction, no other projects suffered similar destruction. Experts and officials are now questioning the structural integrity of the collapsed building, which belonged to Thailand’s State Audit Office (SAO) and had been under construction for three years at a reported cost of over two billion baht (45 million pounds).