China: Seven additional people have been rescued from the debris of a 54-room budget hotel that collapsed in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, according to official media.
Authorities originally said that one person had died when the Siji Kaiyuan hotel fell on Monday afternoon.
The state-run Individuals’s Daily newspaper said on Tuesday that eight people had been confirmed deceased, with 14 others rescued. According to the report, nine individuals are still missing.
There was no additional information on what may have caused the collapse.
According to its listing on the travel portal Ctrip, the three-story hotel featured 54 rooms.
According to Sixth Tone, a sister media source, a local claimed the building was approximately 30 years old and had gone through many owners. Prior to its collapse, the hotel was undergoing renovations, according to the report.
Suzhou, a historic city with a population of over 12 million people located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) west of Shanghai, is a famous tourist destination due to its canals and centuries-old gardens.
Building collapses and accidents are frequent in China, typically as a result of weak building standards or corruption.
Last March, a quarantine hotel in Quanzhou, southern China, collapsed, killing 29 people. Authorities subsequently discovered that three stories had been unlawfully added to the building’s original four-story construction.
Last August, during a birthday celebration, a banquet hall in northern Shanxi province collapsed, killing 29 people in an event related to the use of poor materials.
People were evacuated from one of China’s highest buildings, the SEG Plaza in Shenzhen’s southern metropolis after it shook several times over several days in May.
