A hotel being used as an isolation facility in South China collapsed on Saturday evening, leading to at least 11 deaths and dozens trapped, according to local authorities.
Xinjia hotel in Quanzhou, a city in the southern province of Fujian, collapsed on Saturday evening, with 71 people initially trapped in the debris, according to a notice released by the local district government. As of Sunday afternoon, 37 people who were trapped in the debris were being treated in hospital, and 11 people have been confirmed dead.
The rescue team is still searching for the other 23 who were thought to still be trapped in the debris.
The hotel was being used as an isolation facility for people who had come into close contact with patients confirmed as having Covid-19 or who needed to be quarantined for other reasons, several local residents told Caixin.
At the time of the accident, a total of 58 people were staying at the hotel under quarantine, and they had all previously tested negative for the coronavirus, according to the local government.
Though reasons for the collapse remain unclear, Caixin has learned that the interior of the building was being renovated at the time of the collapse.
The seven-story hotel was reopened in 2018 after renovations with about 80 guest rooms from the fourth floor to the seventh floor, according to a third-party hotel booking platform. Since November 2018, the hotel had twice received penalties from the police for violations pertaining to guest registry, and was listed as an “abnormal operation” as it had failed to submit an annual report.
One source who has had dealings with the building’s owner told Caixin that the owner of the building — Yang Jinqiang — is also the owner of the hotel. Yang “found workers by himself” when the hotel started to undergo renovations in late 2016, the source said.
The source also said that half of the building’s ground floor had a hollow structure with ceilings nearly 6 meters high. “The main problem could be that the calculated bearing capacity couldn’t hold the weight after renovations,” the source said.
An advertiser who had installed an outdoor billboard on the building told Caixin that the building had shop signs and external air conditioners and other equipment installed on the outer wall of the building and that a row of steel billboards were also installed.
Contact reporter Timmy Shen (hongmingshen@caixin.com, Twitter: @timmyhmshen)
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