Nearly 20 nonetheless trapped in collapsed COVID-19 quarantine hotel in China: State media
08 March, 2020
Rescuers are trying to find 19 persons who remain trapped found in rubble following collapse of a hotel used as a good coronavirus quarantine facility found in eastern China on Saturday, state media reported.
A total of 48 people have been rescued from the 67 primarily trapped when the setting up first crumbled, point out broadcaster CCTV said Sunday (Mar 8).
At least four people have already been killed in the accident.
Footage circulating on microblogging program Weibo showed rescue personnel combing through the rubble of the 80-bedroom Xinjia hotel found in coastal Quanzhou city at night while they reassured a female trapped under heavy debris and carried wounded victims into ambulances.
Various other footage published by local media, purportedly from security camera systems next door, showed the whole hotel collapsing in just a few seconds.
The hotel's facade seemed to have crumbled in to the ground, exposing the building's steel frame, and a crowd gathered as the evening wore on.
China's Ministry of Emergency Management said some 200 hometown and 800 Fujian Province firefighters had been deployed to the scene along with 11 search and rescue clubs and seven rescue canines, according to Xinhua.
Quanzhou authorities said ambulances, excavators and cranes had also been rushed to the site.
Representatives from Beijing are actually also on the way to Quanzhou to aid in relief initiatives, Xinhua reported.
Quanzhou has recorded 47 circumstances of the COVID-19 infection and the resort, which opened just two years ago, was lately repurposed to accommodate people who had been in recent connection with confirmed patients, the People's Daily state newspaper reported.
China is zero stranger to construction collapses and deadly construction accidents, which are usually blamed on the country's rapid growth resulting in corner-slicing by builders and the widespread flouting of security rules.
At least 20 persons died in 2016 when a group of crudely-constructed multi-storey properties filled with migrant workers collapsed in the eastern metropolis of Wenzhou. Another 10 were killed this past year in Shanghai after the collapse of a professional building during renovations.
Source: