Gym cave-ins raise questions about inspection

Three people died in another gymnasium collapse in Hua'nan county of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province on Monday.

We say "another" because 11 people, most of them students, died in a similar tragedy in Qiqihar of the same province less than four months ago, triggering a province-wide safety inspection of public places.

Still this happened.

Ironically, a safety inspection had taken place four months before the Qiqihar tragedy too, raising questions about the true effects of these campaign-style inspections.

If the officials had indeed done a thorough inspection of the construction quality, then how did the tragedies take place? If they didn't take the inspection seriously, then what exactly were they doing? To just go through the motions?

Lives are precious. We cannot afford to let such fatal accidents happen again and again. What we need is more than words of assurance about safety after an accident takes place.

Instead, more needs to be done to ensure the quality of buildings so that they don't collapse. The two accidents in Heilongjiang are a reminder that sometimes the measures taken for ensuring safety are far from enough.

The gymnasium that collapsed in Hua'nan reportedly belongs to the Hua'nan New Sunshine Exercise Club.

The person in charge of the club has been detained and is being investigated by the local police. Apart from the probe against the club owner, a thorough investigation is needed of the team that led the safety inspection job to check if they faithfully performed their duties.

Only with strict enforcement of the law can we ensure there is no repeat of a similar accident in the future.