About 1,000 people were evacuated from residential buildings Tuesday morning after a construction site cave-in caused a gas leak, newspapers reported Wednesday.

A construction worker was injured when the side of a pit collapsed at Gangxia in Futian District. No one was affected by the gas.

The cave-in, 31 meters long and 10 meters wide, ruptured an underground liquefied petroleum gas pipeline. A preliminary analysis by the Futian District Construction Bureau and other departments found that heavy machinery at the side of the pit could have caused the accident.

Firefighters sprayed water around the site to help dissipate the gas. Many government officials went to the site to supervise evacuations.

Gas supplies were cut off to more than 1,600 households in two nearby buildings until temporary gas bottles were in place in the early afternoon. An investigation of the accident could take more than 10 days. Gas lines would be restored after that, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

The residential and commercial construction site was close to the intersection of Caitian and Binhe roads, near a supermarket. North-south traffic on Caitian Road was halted for an hour.

(Shenzhen Daily March 17, 2005)