Search and rescue efforts are underway after about 70 people were trapped in a hotel collapse Saturday night in southeastern China, officials in the city of Quanzhou said.

The hotel was used as a coronavirus quarantine centre, People's Daily and other state media outlets confirmed.

Forty-three people have been rescued from the rubble, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. Search efforts were ongoing.

Among those rescued was a young boy, his father and mother. The family was taken to a hospital.

Photos on news websites showed rescue workers with flashlights climbing over the debris. Rubble was piled on cars in front of the building.

The hotel opened in June 2018, with rooms on the fourth to seventh floors of the building, the newspaper Beijing Youth Daily said.

An unidentified hotel employee cited by the Beijing Youth Daily said the owner carried out "foundation-related construction" before the disaster. It gave no details.

China, where the virus first emerged in December, has confirmed more than 80,000 cases, by far the most in the world. It reported 99 new cases on Saturday, its first daily increase of less than 100 since Jan. 20. The government also reported 28 new fatalities, raising the mainland's death toll to 3,070.

No fatalities have been reported in the building collapse.

It wasn't immediately clear why the building collapsed.

- with AP