Three people killed, six others injured as signboard falls in Shanghai shopping district

People look at the site where a shop signboard fell onto the street killing people the night before, in Shanghai on August 13, 2018. Three people were killed and six others injured late on August 12 in Shanghai when a shop signboard fell onto a sidewalk in a crowded shopping district amid heavy rain and gusts from Typhoon Yagi. /PHOTO: AFP

Three people were killed and six others injured in Shanghai when a shop signboard toppled onto a crowded sidewalk in a popular shopping district amid heavy rain triggered by Typhoon Yagi.

The accident occurred Sunday night on busy Nanjing East Road in the city center, a few hundred meters from Shanghai’s historic Bund riverfront district, a statement by city authorities said.

Security camera footage broadcast by state-run China Central Television (CCTV) showed a heavy section of signage above a shop break off without warning and plummet edge-wise into a group of pedestrians.

Three were killed. The six who were hurt did not suffer life-threatening injuries, city authorities said.

CCTV quoted a witness as saying that a five-year-old child was among the dead.

It took 16 people to lift the sign off of the victims, CCTV added.

Typhoon Yagi battered parts of the Philippines before heading north toward eastern China.

It made landfall in coastal Zhejiang province south of Shanghai late on Sunday night, after authorities had evacuated more than 200,000 people in ten cities in the province as a precaution.

No reports of major damage or casualties in China have emerged.   /vvp