Shaking Skyscraper Spreads Panic In Downtown Shenzhen

One of China's tallest skyscrapers was evacuated on Tuesday after it began to shake, sending panicked shoppers scampering to safety in the southern city of Shenzhen.

The near 300-metre high SEG Plaza inexplicably began to shake at around 1pm, prompting an evacuation of people inside while pedestrians looked on open-mouthed from the streets outside.

The building was sealed shut as of 2:40pm, according to local media reports.

Completed in 2000, the tower is home to a major electronics market as well as various offices in the downtown of one of China's fastest-growing cities.

Emergency management officials are investigating what caused the tower in Shenzhen's Futian district to wobble, according to a post on the Twitter-like Weibo platform.

"After checking and analysing the data of various earthquake monitoring stations across the city, there was no earthquake in Shenzhen today," the statement said.

"The cause of the shaking is being verified by various departments."

It was not immediately clear how authorities will handle a dangerous building of its scale in the heart of a city of over 12 million people.

Bystander videos published by local media on Weibo showed the skyscraper shaking on its foundations as hundreds of terrified pedestrians ran away outside.

"SEG has been completely evacuated," wrote one Weibo user in a caption to a video of hundreds of people milling about on a wide shopping street near the tower.

The tower is named after the semiconductor and electronics manufacturer Shenzhen Electronics Group, whose offices are based in the building. It is the 18th tallest tower in Shenzhen, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat skyscraper database.

Building collapses are not rare in China, where lax building standards and breakneck urbanisation lead to constructions being thrown up in haste.

Last May, a five-storey quarantine hotel in the south-eastern city of Quanzhou collapsed due to shoddy construction, killing 29.

The devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake caused over 69,000 deaths. The disaster ignited a storm of public controversy over poorly constructed school buildings – dubbed 'tofu dregs' – which collapsed and killed thousands of students. (AFP)