The Chinese government has not been having a great time as of late.
When the virus first started spreading to other countries, news emerged that authorities had silenced doctors who tried to warn others of the disease.
The Wuhan authorities even held a mass banquet on 18 Jan even though they knew the illness had been spreading in the city for at least three weeks.
And of course, by not taking the necessary precautions early on, the coronavirus spread across the country and later all over the world.
Things seemed to be improving in recent weeks, though; with the abatement of the disease, some businesses have reopened and the government has relaxed some of its policies.
But then this happened:
Covid-19 Quarantine Building Collapse
An 80-room hotel being used as a Covid-19 quarantine centre in China has collapsed, leaving 70 people trapped.
The hotel, Xinjia Express Hotel, was a five-storey building in Fujian province that was being used to house and observe people who had come into contact with Covid-19 patients.
It collapsed at around 7:30pm local time yesterday.
47 people rescued
Thankfully, more than half of those trapped in the collapsed building have been rescued.
#Updated By 9:55 pm, 34 had been rescued, according to Quanzhou municipal government.
Xinjia Hotel was used as a quarantine site for isolating people that had close contacts with infected patients. pic.twitter.com/2zA0SbS7zB
— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) March 7, 2020
Nearly 150 firefighters are reportedly engaged in the rescue operation.
Onlookers uploaded pictures and videos of the incident to Weibo, showing rescue workers combing through the rubble of the hotel and carrying wounded victims out of the wreckage into ambulances.
One video showed a fireman walking away from the wreckage carrying an infant, reported The Guardian.
Officials have yet to confirm whether anyone died in the accident.
Heard a Loud Bang
Witnesses who were having dinner nearby say they heard a loud bang and thought it was an explosion. They later realised that the hotel building opposite them had collapsed.
One employee of a bakery next to the hotel said the building had collapsed like “a chopstick falling slantwise to the ground” and that it had happened very suddenly.
According to SCMP, the hotel is one of two buildings being used as a quarantine centre in the city’s Licheng district, after opening as a hotel in June 2018.
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As you know, due to the overwhelming number of patients in China, temporary quarantine centres have been set up in buildings like the Xinjia Express Hotel to house and observe those suspected of carrying the disease.
Building Collapses Not Uncommon in China
As The Straits Times reported, building collapses and deadly construction accidents are not uncommon in China.
In 2016, a series of crudely-constructed multi-storey buildings packed with migrant workers collapsed in the eastern city of Wenzhou, killing at least 20.
Last year, a commercial building in Shanghai had collapsed during renovations, killing 10.
Many believe that this series of collapses is no coincidence. They believe that China’s rapid economic growth led to corner-cutting by builders and the widespread flouting of safety rules.
Cause Unknown
The cause of the Xinjia Express Hotel collapse is still unknown. However, one unidentified hotel employee said the owner carried out “foundation-related construction” before the disaster, but gave no details.
Some netizens demanded an investigation into how the hotel could have collapsed.
While we don’t know how or why the building collapsed, one thing’s for sure; the Chinese government has some explaining to do.
