Rescue crews have saved a woman who had been trapped for 21 hours under rubble from debris from a hotel used to house people being quarantined for observation for coronavirus.
Rescue crews pulled 50 people from the rubble and 39 of them survived as of 2 p.m. local time on Monday, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.
Eleven people have died and 21 people still remain trapped under the debris as rescue crews continue to find survivors. Police are investigating the hotel’s 65-year-old owner.
The collapsed hotel, called Xinjia, is located in downtown Quanzhou, a city with a population of 8.5 million people in southeastern China’s Fujian Province.
It had 80 rooms and opened in June 2018. The hotel had been changed into a temporary observation space to quarantine suspected coronavirus patients before it fell to the ground on March 7 at 7:15 p.m.
The building’s first floor had been undergoing renovation, according to Xinhua.
A video showing surveillance footage from a nearby gas station showed the hotel falling to pieces in a matter of seconds without any time for anyone to respond.
Another video report showed a 12-year-old boy being carried out of the debris after being trapped for about 16 hours, shouting at them, “my mum is right next to me” as he was being carted away to an ambulance with a face mask covering his eyes, mouth, and nose.
People’s Daily reported that his mother was rescued at 4:30 p.m. the day before.
Photos from the rescue site showed workers in hard hats, goggles, and face masks, and a medical team waiting in white overalls and surgical masks.
A rescue force of more than 1,000 people showed up at the site, government officials said.
The Fujan Firefighting Department said on Weibo that they rescued at least two children and one toddler by Sunday around midnight.
News of the collapse comes as the coronavirus is slowing down in China. There are currently 114,223 cases of coronavirus worldwide, with 4,005 casualties from the virus.
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