Skip to main content

Seventy trapped after Chinese coronavirus quarantine hotel collapses, more than half rescued

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - 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.
A video stream posted by the government-backed Beijing News site showed rescue workers in orange overalls clambering over the rubble of the Quanzhou Xinjia Hotel and carrying people toward ambulances.
The hotel collapsed at about 7:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) and 34 people were rescued in the following two hours, the Quanzhou municipality said on its website.
By dawn on Sunday, 47 individuals had been rescued, according to state media outlet People’s Daily.
“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.”
Quanzhou is a port city on the Taiwan Strait in the province of Fujian with a population of more than 8 million.
The official People’s Daily said the hotel had opened in June 2018 with 80 rooms.
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 (WB.O) 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 Fujian provincial government said that as of Friday, the province had 296 cases of coronavirus and 10,819 people had been placed under observation after being classified as suspected close contacts.
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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

European Union will close its borders to all non-essential travel to fight coronavirus

Madrid (ITNTV) The European Union will close its borders to all non-essential travel as it attempts to contain the  ongoing spread of the coronavirus  on the continent. "The less travel, the more we can contain the virus," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday following a video conference between G7 leaders. She appeared confident that the European Council would sign off on the restriction in a Tuesday vote. The bloc's member states imposed aggressive measures on Monday,  days after the  World Health Organization (WHO) said Europe was at the epicenter of the pandemic. French President Emmanuel Macron declared "war" on the virus during a national address on Monday, banning all social events across the country -- including family gatherings. Macron said those who have gathered in public places in recent days have not been respecting previous measures to limit the outbreak's spread in France, which as of Monday had 5,380 con...
Post a Comment
Read more

US uses encrypted app to connect with Iranians as coronavirus sweeps their country

Washington (ITNTV) The State Department is using social media to encourage Iranians to share information with the Trump administration -- both on an encrypted tip line and through an online survey -- about the  coronavirus pandemic  that is devastating the country. "This is Iran's Chernobyl," said one administration official of the outbreak, who described social media portals as a tool to bypass the Iranian regime and connect to the country's people. The US began encouraging Iranians to use the encrypted messaging app last year, when Iranian demonstrators took to the streets and US officials wanted to learn more about the regime's bloody crackdown. Now, with Covid-19 devastating Iran, the tip line has been reinvigorated, administration officials told CNN. This time, the goal is to collect information from Iranians, find ways to share that information when it is determined to be accurate and leverage the coronavirus in an effort to fortify a relationship ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Virus creates world's longest passenger flight

(ITNTV) —  The aviation industry has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with travelers across the world dealing with canceled flights and travel bans as they scramble to get home. But one unlikely aviation side effect is the creation of a new world aviation record. On March 14, French airline Air Tahiti Nui flew the longest ever scheduled passenger flight by distance -- transiting 9,765 miles across the world from Papeete, in Tahiti, French Polynesia, to Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport. This one off milestone was a direct consequence of the coronavirus-induced US travel restrictions. This route usually involves a scheduled stopover at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). But when an airplane stops over in the US, all passengers must alight the aircraft and proceed through US Customs and Border Protection before they're allowed to advance on with the next leg of their journey. Current restrictions rendered this part of the journey untenable, so instead, f...
Post a Comment
Read more