10 killed in China hotel collapse
It was used as quarantine facility; rescue work on for remaining 23 trapped
Beijing, March 8: Ten people were killed after a hotel used as a quarantine facility amid the Covid-19 outbreak collapsed in south east China’s Fujian province, official media reported on Sunday.
Around 71 people were trapped in the hotel that collapsed on Saturday in Quanzhou city of the province, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. The hotel was used to quarantine and observe people who had come to the province during the novel Covid-19 prevention and control and had come in contact with the virus patients.
“Death toll has risen to 10, rescue work continues for remained 23 trapped people,” state-run People’s Daily tweeted. Meanwhile, the victims in the collapse tested negative in nucleic acid test, it said.
The Xinjia hotel, located in Licheng district of the city, was in operation since 2018 and had 80 rooms. A preliminary investigation showed that the hotel was being decorated when the incident happened and the owner of the building has been put under police control, the Xinhua report said. Over 1,000 fire fighters, police officers and medics have been deployed to join the rescue work.
The Ministry of Emergency Management has sent a work team to Quanzhou to help with the rescue and investigate the cause of the collapse. The ministry has called for all-out efforts to rescue the victims and emphasized on the prevention of secondary disasters, while ensuring the safety of rescue teams.
27 fatalities reported Beijing, March 8: China on Sunday reported 27 new deaths from Covid-19, the lowest number of fatalities in more than a month, taking the death toll to 3,097, while the Covid-19 infections for the first time fell below 50 since the disease surfaced in Hubei province in January. All the 27 deaths occurred in the virus-hit central Hubei province, China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said. Of the 44 new cases reported on Saturday, 41 were in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.
The overall confirmed cases on the mainland has risen to 80,695 by Saturday. The total deaths reached 3,097. Over 20,500 patients were still undergoing treatment and 57,065 discharged after recovery, the NHC said. Also on Saturday, three Covid-19 cases in people arriving from abroad were reported.