Beijing:
The death toll from the collapse of a hotel used as a quarantine facility in China’s Fujian province amid the coronavirus outbreak has risen to 11, local officials said on Monday.
The Xinjia Hotel in Licheng district in Quanzhou city was used to quarantine and observe people who had come to the province during the novel coronavirus prevention and control and had come in contact with the virus patients.
Fifty people have been pulled out of the debris of the hotel so far and among them 11 have died, the rescue headquarters said.
The rescuers found a mother and her child in the rubble. Efforts are underway to rescue them, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
“We had just finished lunch when the building suddenly collapsed,” said Dong Lin, a guest in room 506.
“I thought it was an earthquake. Before I reacted, the whole building collapsed. I called out to my wife but I couldn’t find her.”
“She was stuck right next to me but my whole lower body couldn’t move,” Dong said.
After being trapped for more than three hours, Dong and his wife were rescued and sent to hospital.
“Hearing the arrival of the rescue workers, I felt there was hope I would survive,” he told Xinhua.
At the time of the collapse, a total of 71 people were trapped and nine others managed to escape. Twenty-one individuals remain trapped as rescue efforts are ongoing.
A preliminary investigation showed the hotel building was being decorated when the accident occurred and the owner of the building has been put under police control.
The novel coronavirus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year and has claimed over 3,000 lives in the country.
Apart from China, over 3,400 people have died of the deadly disease and over 101,000 have been infected from the virus globally.
