Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

This is the moment a six-storey coronavirus quarantine hotel in China collapses with 80 people inside, including 58 confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients.

Authorities in the city of Quanzhou in East China’s Fujian Province say they have pulled 49 people from the rubble of Xinjia Hotel, but 10 were declared dead while 22 others still remain unaccounted for.

Xinjia Hotel, which is one of two coronavirus quarantine points in the area, came down at just after 7pm local time on 7th March with 80 people inside, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management reported.

Nine people managed to escape the structure on their own, but 71 remained trapped in the building as hundreds of firefighters began a search and rescue operation.

AsiaWire

According to reports, 58 confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients were quarantined in the hotel at the time, while 16 staff members and six other personnel were also on site.

Zhang Yi, director of Licheng District’s housing bureau, reported that the hotel’s owner, 65-year-old Mr Yang, was summoned for questioning.

The six-storey Xinjia Hotel, which opened in June 2018 with 66 rooms, had been undergoing ground-floor renovations since before the Chinese New Year holidays in January.

“Three to four minutes” before the collapse, the owner had received a call from his workers telling him that a column on the ground floor had become misshapen, Director Zhang said.

However, the exact cause of the collapse was still being investigated at the time of writing.

As of 9th March, Fujian Province had nearly 300 recorded COVID-19 cases and one death.

Meanwhile, the global death toll soared past 3,800, with over 110,00 confirmed cases worldwide.

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