22 killed after houses collapse in China's Zhejiang Province

Rescuers said the collapsed buildings were built by villagers.

Beijing: Two more bodies were recoveredtoday from the debris of four residential houses that collapsed in China's eastern coastal Zhejiang Province, taking the death toll to 22.

About 800 rescuers have finished the search. Twenty eight people were pulled from the debris in Wenzhou's Lucheng industrial district, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Two more bodies were recovered taking the overall death toll from the collapse to 22, the report said. Six survivors were hospitalised. They are in stable conditions. One of the survivors is a young girl who was protected by the bodies of her parents, who were killed in the collapse, the report said.

The cause of the disaster is under investigation. Rescuers said the collapsed buildings were built by villagers.

Five adjacent houses built in the 1970s remain standing, but rescuers are demolishing them to avoid secondary disasters.

Several buildings have collapsed in recent years in China mainly due to poor construction.

In May, 16 people were reported dead after a residential building in Guizhou province in the southwest collapsed due to landslides.

Two people were killed and 24 injured in April when a storm brought down a wholesale market building in Foshan city, in the southern province of Guangdong.