Eight killed, nine missing after hotel collapses in China

Images from the scene showed orange-clad rescue workers swarming over large piles of rubble. PHOTO: REUTERS
Images from the scene showed orange-clad rescue workers swarming over large piles of rubble. PHOTO: AFP
Images from the scene showed orange-clad rescue workers swarming over large piles of rubble. PHOTO: AFP

NANJING/SHANGHAI (XINHUA, AFP) - Eight people were killed and nine others remained missing on Tuesday (July 13) after an annex to a small budget hotel collapsed in eastern China.

Six others were rescued from the rubble of the Siji Kaiyuan hotel, which collapsed on Monday afternoon, the government of the district of Wujiang said on an official social media feed.

Authorities had earlier suggested that 14 people had already been rescued but offered the new tally following "further analysis and screening of new information".

Preliminary investigations found that the collapse was triggered by an unauthorised renovation, according to the government of Wujiang district, where the hotel is located.

The Siji Kaiyuan hotel opened in 2018 and had 54 guest rooms, according to its listing on the travel site Ctrip.

Images from the scene showed orange-clad rescue workers swarming over large piles of rubble.

Suzhou, a city of over 12 million roughly 100km west of Shanghai, is a popular destination for tourists drawn to its canals and centuries-old gardens.

Building collapses or accidents are not uncommon in China, often due to lax construction standards or corruption.

The collapse of a quarantine hotel in southern China's Quanzhou city last March killed 29 people, with authorities later finding that three floors had been added illegally to the building's original four-storey structure.

And authorities in May evacuated one of China's tallest skyscrapers, the SEG Plaza in the southern city of Shenzhen, after it shook multiple times over several days.

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