After 69 hours, survivor pulled out of collapsed China quarantine hotel

BEIJING: A survivor was rescued after 69 hours who was trapped under a collapsed hotel used as a coronavirus quarantine facility in eastern China Tuesday, as officials said the building had been illegally rebuilt several times.

Twenty people died when the 66-room hotel crumbled on Saturday night, with 41 people rescued from the wreckage injured and nine still feared trapped. The unidentified man was pulled out late Tuesday afternoon nearly three days after the building collapsed, according to the official Xinhua news agency, and sent to a nearby hospital.

The accident has exposed safety loopholes neglected by local authorities, Shang Yong, deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Management, said at a press conference Tuesday. “This hotel was illegally constructed and had repeatedly violated the regulations,” Shang Yong said, saying local officials had “neglected their supervision responsibilities.”

Local media published video that appeared to show the hotel’s facade crumbling to the ground in seconds, exposing the structure’s steel frame. The building in the coastal city of Quanzhou - which has recorded 47 virus cases - had been repurposed to house people who had recently been in regions hard hit by COVID-19, according to local newspaper Quanzhou Evening News. Video posted online Tuesday by the Ministry of Emergency Management showed rescuers bowing over the body of a victim, with one rescuer breaking down in tears and leaving the scene.

Earlier footage from the ministry showed rescuers helping children don surgical masks before pulling them from the remains of the six-storey Xinjia hotel.A 12-year-old boy told emergency workers his mother was still buried in the rubble.