Chinese diplomats may have added extra scrutiny to the urgent rescue work in eastern China after ridiculing U.S. efforts in Florida less than a week ago.
Chinese diplomats have drawn extra attention to the ongoing rescue work at the site of a fatal hotel collapse in eastern China on Monday, after having taken to Twitter to ridicule U.S. efforts in Florida less than one week ago. Authorities in the city of Suzhou, in coastal Jiangsu province, said more than 600 people were taking part in the search for survivors at Siji Kaiyuan Hotel, where nine people remain missing in the ruins of an adjoining three-story building. At a press conference on Tuesday, provincial officials said 14 of 23 victims had been recovered from the rubble as of 7 a.m. local time. Eight were confirmed dead, five were hospitalized, and one was sent home. Information about the victims, including those who remain unaccounted for, has yet to be disclosed. Authorities said the identities of 18 people have been confirmed so far, without elaborating. They are thought to be hotel guests. Chen Zhi’ang, a provincial fire service official tasked with coordinating search and rescue at the site in Suzhou’s Wujiang District, told reporters that the rescue would be ” very difficult. ” “Although the building itself is not tall, the collapse was not partial. It collapsed in its entirety, after which the structure was crushed into pieces,” he said. The 54-room hotel, which reportedly catered to budget and business clientele, had changed names many times over three decades, reopening under new management last March. Provincial authorities said they had formed a taskforce to investigate the cause of the collapse, which officials said could be linked to structural modifications. Local emergency responders said the building came down at around 3:33 p.m. local time on Monday. The tragedy in Suzhou comes less than three weeks after the Surfside condominium’s partial collapse on June 24.
