At least 10 people were killed in the collapse of a Chinese hotel that housed quarantined victims who had arrived from other parts of China affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
Management said that 71 people were trapped from the sudden collapse of the building in the southeastern city of Quanzhou on Saturday evening.
The Quanzhou Xinjia Hotel is a designated quarantine facility in eastern China.
A video made its rounds on microblogging platform Weibo wherein rescue workers were combing through the rubble of the 80-room hotel in coastal Quanzhou city in the dark as they calmed a woman trapped under heavy debris and carried wounded victims into ambulances.
According to the Ministry of Emergency Management, 10 of 48 victims pulled from the rubble had died, while the rest had been hospitalized.
The coronavirus quarantine facility is located in the Chinese city of Quanzhou.
The novel coronavirus record has surpassed 100,000 worldwide as official Chinese data showed a significant blow to the country's exports. This was following the outbreak caused massive disruptions to business operations and economic activity.
The World Health Organization (WHO) dubbed the spread of the virus "deeply concerning."
The hotel building in ruins was used to isolate people under observation for the coronavirus in the Chinese city of Quanzhou.
Out of the 71 people who were initially trapped, 48 have been rescued, of whom 38 were sent to hospitals.
Rescue workers are still searching the rubble of the five-story Xinjia Hotel in Fujian.
It is still unclear the reason behind the collapse on Saturday evening.
A thousand firefighters and other emergency responders were deployed by the Fujian Fire Department/ The team worked through the night to find the survivors.
Most of the rescued people were taken to hospitals for treatment, with some having serious injuries.
The owner of the hotel was put under police control.
Two retail spaces on the first floor of the seven-story building were undergoing renovation and a pillar apparently deformed a few minutes before the building came down.
The hotel's exterior appeared to have crumbled into the ground and the building's steel frame has been exposed.
The building came down at about 7.30 PM on Saturday, with more than 750 medics and rescuers and 20 ambulances responding to the disaster.
Of the 71 people believed to be within the hotel at the time, 58 had been under quarantine.
The incident threatens to add fuel to the fire that is public anger over authorities' managing of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
Footages circulating online show emergency workers combing through the building's wreckage in the southern province of Fujian.
The government-backed Beijing News website posted footage of rescue workers in orange overalls scrambling over rubble and entangled steelwork while carrying people towards ambulances.
According to Guo Yutuan, squadron leader of the Quanzhou armed police detachment's mobile unit, "We are using life detection instruments to monitor signs of life and professional breaking-in tools to make forcible entries. We are trying our utmost to save trapped people."
The quarantine hotel opened in 2018 and had 80 guest rooms.
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