March 7 (UPI) — A hotel in China being used as a coronavirus quarantine center collapsed Saturday, trapping dozens of people, officials said.
About 70 people were trapped in the five-story Xinjia Express Hotel in Quanzhou, a port city in the Fujian province, after it collapsed just after 7 p.m., the Fujian Daily reported citing Licheng district officials. Since then, 38 people have been rescued, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
The Quanzhou Fire Rescue Division Command Center and the Fujian Fire Rescue Corps responded to the scene.
The People’s Daily posted video from the scene on Twitter and said the collapsed hotel was a designated quarantine place for people suspected of having the coronavirus or having close contact with COVID-19 patients.
The exact number of people in the building at the time was unknown and it’s not clear what caused the collapse.
The hotel had 80 guest rooms and opened in June 2018.
The Fujian province had 296 cases of coronavirus as of Friday and 10,819 people had been placed under observation because they were in close contact with someone infected.
Most cases, over 67,000, are in the Hubei province, including 49,871 in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, as of Friday, according to the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China.
