’70 trapped’ as China’s coronavirus quarantine facility collapses

At least 70 people were trapped, on Saturday, when Xinjia Hotel, a coronavirus quarantine facility in China, collapsed.

The five-storey hotel in Quanzhou, a Chinese city, was used as a quarantine facility to monitor people who had close contact with carriers of the disease.

According to officials, the cause of the collapse has not yet been identified, but efforts are ongoing to rescue victims.

A team from the ministry of emergency management have been able to rescue about 35 of the victims trapped in the rubble of the facility.

Speaking with Beijing news website, a woman said her sister was quarantined in the hotel.

“I can’t contact them, they’re not answering their phones,” she said.

“I’m under quarantine too [at another hotel] and I’m very worried. I don’t know what to do. They were healthy, they took their temperatures every day, and the tests showed that everything was normal.”

Nigeria confirmed the first case of coronavirus in February — since its outbreak in December 2019 in Wuhan, China.

According to the World Health Organisation, more than 101,000 people have contracted disease globally, while more than 3,000 people have died.