At least eight people died and nine were missing after a part of a hotel collapsed in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou on Monday afternoon, AP reported, quoting local authorities.
At least 23 people were trapped in debris after the Siji Kaiyuan Hotel collapsed. Six of them have been rescued so far, as officials continue to dig through the rubble.
Authorities have not yet cited a reason for the collapse.
Over 600 officials, including earthquake rescue teams, and 120 vehicles were mobilised for the rescue operation, the the city government said, according to AP.
The Siji Kaiyuan, a budget hotel with 54 rooms, had started operations in 2018, Reuters reported. The portion of the hotel that collapsed had three storeys.
In the past, several building collapses and accidents in China have been blamed on lax construction standards or the lack of enforcement of regulations, according to AFP.
As many as 29 persons died in March 2020 when a quarantine hotel in southern China’s Quanzhou city collapsed. Authorities later found that three floors had been added illegally to the building’s original four-storey structure.
In May 2015, 38 people died in a fire at a nursing home in the Henan province. The nursing home was later found to have been poorly constructed using flammable material, the BBC reported.
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