8 Dead and 9 Missing After Hotel Collapses in Suzhou

By That's GBA, July 13, 2021

On Monday around 3.30pm, a hotel in Suzhou’s Wujiang district collapsed.

As of 11am on Tuesday, eight people have perished and nine are reported missing, according to The Paper.

Emergency personnel rushed to the scene and have rescued six victims so far. One person was unscathed and has already returned home while five others are in a stable condition and receiving treatment.

The hotel is part of a Chinese hotel chain called Four Seasons (separate from the international hotel brand of the same name).

The Four Seasons Kaiyuan Hotel in Suzhou. Image via @澎湃新闻/Weibo

Rescue work underway. Image via @中央人民广播电台/Weibo

Firefighters at the scene. Image via @独行骑士·Lwf/Weibo

Rescue work. Image via @石述思/Weibo

The Jiangsu government is investigating the cause of the incident, which is currently unknown.

On Chinese social media, users are sending well wishes for the emergency rescue team and the victims. Others have recalled the tragic hotel collapse in Fujian in March 2020, which took 29 lives.

“The collapse of the hotel in Suzhou reminds me of the hotel collapse in Quanzhou at the time of the pandemic. I hope that fewer people will perish and that this kind of thing will not happen again,” one Weibo user posted on Tuesday morning.

Another user questioned whether this latest incident could have been prevented. “Last year after the collapse of the Quanzhou hotel, were investigations into potential safety risks carried out around the country?”

[Cover image: screengrab via 中新视频]