Dozens trapped as hotel used for coronavirus quarantine collapses
Weibo site’s users demand probe into how the hotel could have collapsed; Two apartment buildings in South Korea quarantined over coronavirus; Maldives reports first virus cases
A five-storey hotel being used for coronavirus quarantine collapsed in the southeast Chinese port city of Quanzhou on Saturday trapping about 70 people, state media said.
The 80-room hotel was recently converted to a quarantine facility for people who had recent contact with coronavirus patients, the People’s Daily state newspaper reported. State news agency Xinhua said rescue efforts were ongoing.
A video stream posted by the governmentbacked Beijing News site showed rescue workers in orange overalls clambering over the rubble of the Quanzhou Xinjia Hotel and carrying people towards ambulances.
Beijing News’ video stream was viewed by more than 2 million Weibo users on Saturday evening, and the hotel’s collapse was the top trending topic on the Weibo site, China’s close equivalent to Twitter.
Some users demanded a investigation into how the hotel could have collapsed.
Anger has been building up against the authorities in China over their early handling of the coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 3,300 people globally, most of them in China.
The hotel collapsed at about 7:30pm and 34 people were rescued in the following two hours, the Quanzhou municipality said on its website.
“I was at a gas station and heard a loud noise. I looked up and the whole building collapsed. Dust was everywhere, and glass fragments were flying around,” a witness said in a video posted on the Miaopai streaming app.
“I was so terrified that my hands and legs were shivering.”
A woman named only by her surname, Chen, told the Beijing News website that relatives including her sister had been under quarantine at the hotel as prescribed by local regulations after returning from Hubei province, where the coronavirus emerged. She said they had been scheduled to leave soon after completing their 14 days of isolation.
“I can’t contact them, they’re not answering their phones, she said.
“I’m under quarantine too ( at another hotel) and I’m very worried, I don’t know what to do. They were healthy, they took their temperatures every day, and the tests showed that everything was normal.”
The official Xinhua News Agency said the committee responsible for working safety under the State Council, China’s cabinet, had sent an emergency working team to the site.
Two South Korean apartment buildings heavily occupied by members of a sect linked to most of the country’s coronavirus cases have been quarantined after dozens of residents tested positive for the disease, an official said on Saturday.
The move comes as the country, which has the highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the world outside China, reported 448 new infections, taking its total to 7,041.
Six more deaths were recorded by the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters, bringing the toll to 48.
The apartment complex in Daegu -- the country’s fourth-largest city and epicentre of its outbreak — was placed under lockdown after 46 residents were confirmed to have the virus, mayor Kwon Young-jin said.
More than 140 people live in the two buildings, including 94 members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which is often accused of being a cult and is linked to more than 60 per cent of South Korea’s infections.
Two hotel employees tested positive for the novel coronavirus at a luxury resort in the Maldives, the government said on Saturday marking the first cases reported in the upmarket holiday destination.
The country’s health ministry said two unnamed foreign nationals working at the deluxe Kuredu Island Resort, about 150 kilometres north of the capital Male, tested positive for COVID-19.
Officials said the two men were checked after an Italian tourist who had holidayed at their resort tested positive upon his return home.
The resort was on lockdown on Saturday as local authorities moved to check other staff and guests, officials said.
The Maldives had already suspended direct air links with China, the epicentre of the virus. Male has also stopped direct flights from Iran and Italy, two of the worst-hit countries apart from China.