China's Guangzhou halts construction projects after deadly accident

The announcement from the Guangzhou Housing and Urban-Rural Construction Committee said that all construction sites in the city will need to pass an inspection before work can resume.

The accident occurred on Saturday evening at a construction site belonging to a unit of China Communications Construction , according to the announcement.

Explosions and other mishaps are common in China, often because of patchy safety enforcement. The central government has pledged to improve checks to avert such accidents.

(Reporting by Hallie Gu and Elias Glenn; Editing by Richard Pullin)