Coronavirus quarantine hotel collapses in China, trapping 70 people

Rescuers work at the site of a collapsed five-story hotel building in Quanzhou city in southeast China's Fujian province Saturday, March 7, 2020. The hotel used for medical observation of people who had contact with coronavirus patients collapsed in southeastern China on Saturday, trapping dozens, state media reported. (Chinatopix Via AP) (Uncredited)

(CNN) -- Search and rescue efforts are underway after about 70 people were trapped in a hotel collapse Saturday night in southeastern China, officials in the city of Quanzhou said.

The hotel was used as a coronavirus quarantine center, People's Daily and other state media outlets confirmed.

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Thirty-three people had been rescued from the debris by 9:30 p.m. local time (8:30 a.m. ET), the city's government said in a statement. Another 10 were rescued over the next three hours, People's Daily reported, and search efforts were ongoing.

Quanzhou is about 600 miles from Wuhan, the epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak in China, where more than 3,000 people have died from the virus.

No fatalities have been reported in the building collapse.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the building collapsed.


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