Not less than 70 people have been
trapped after the collapse of a hotel used as a coronavirus quarantine facility in eastern China on Saturday evening, officials said.
Quanzhou authorities said over 700 rescue workers had been deployed to the scene along with ambulances, excavators and cranes.
Rescue workers are combing
through the building’s wreckage rescuing victims trapped under heavy debris as other wounded victims were carried into ambulances.
At least 38 people have so far been rescued from the rubble of the 80-room Xinjia hotel in coastal Quanzhou city, said the local government.
Officials have yet to confirm whether anyone died in the accident.
Quanzhou has recorded 47 cases of the COVID-19 infection and the hotel, which opened just two years ago, was recently repurposed to house people who had been in recent contact with confirmed patients, the People’s Daily state newspaper reported.