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China quarantine hotel collapse toll jumps to 20
BEIJING, March 10, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – The death toll from the collapse of a
hotel used as a coronavirus quarantine facility in eastern China has risen to
20, authorities said Tuesday, with 10 others still feared trapped in the
rubble.
Forty-one survivors pulled from the wreckage are injured, the Ministry of
Emergency Management said at a press conference Tuesday.
The building in the coastal city of Quanzhou had been repurposed to house
people who had recently been in regions hard hit by COVID-19, according to
local newspaper Quanzhou Evening News.
The hotel collapsed on Saturday night, with footage published by local
media appearing to show the building’s facade crumbling to the ground in
seconds, exposing the structure’s steel frame.
The city has recorded 47 cases of the virus.
Video posted online Tuesday by the Ministry of Emergency Management showed
rescuers bowing over the body of a victim, with one rescuer breaking down in
tears and having to step away from the scene.
Earlier footage from the ministry showed rescuers helping children put on
surgical masks before pulling them from the remains of the six-storey Xinjia
hotel.
A 12-year-old boy told rescuers his mother was still buried in the rubble.
“She was next to me just now,” he said in the video. His mother was rescued
alive hours later, according to the ministry.
Rescuers were also seen spraying disinfectant on each other as part of
“strict decontamination” measures between shifts.
Besides the 61 people pulled out of the wreckage, nine others escaped on
their own, the ministry said.
The first floor had been undergoing renovation since before the Lunar New
Year holiday, and authorities said construction workers called the hotel’s
owner minutes before the collapse to report a deformed pillar.
The owner has been summoned by police while investigators work to determine
whether the renovation or an original structural issue was at fault,
according to the ministry.
Quanzhou Evening News reported Sunday that all of the people quarantined in
the hotel had tested negative for the virus.
The emergency management ministry said some 200 local and 800 Fujian
Province firefighters had been deployed to the scene along with 11 search and
rescue teams and seven rescue dogs, according to Xinhua.
The National Health Commission said it had dispatched to Quanzhou 18
medical experts from the nearby cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen.
China is no stranger to building collapses and deadly construction
accidents that are typically blamed on the country’s rapid growth leading to
corner-cutting by builders and the widespread flouting of safety rules.
At least 20 people died in 2016 when a series of crudely-constructed multi-
storey buildings packed with migrant workers collapsed in the eastern city of
Wenzhou.
Another 10 were killed last year in Shanghai after the collapse of a
commercial building during renovations.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 0932 hrs