Rescue workers search for survivors amid the debris of Xinjia Hotel in the Licheng district of Quanzhou, southeast China's Fujian province, on March 8, 2020, a day after the hotel collapsed. (LIN SHANCHUAN / XINHUA)

FUZHOU — The death toll from a hotel building collapse in east China's Fujian province on Saturday has risen to 26 by Wednesday morning, local authorities said.

Sixty-eight people had been pulled out of the debris of Xinjia Hotel in Licheng district in the city of Quanzhou by 6:40 am Wednesday, and among them, 26 had died, said the rescue headquarters.

The hotel collapse is a production accident as the building had been illegally reconstructed several times, Shang Yong, deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Management, told a press conference on Tuesday

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At the time of the collapse, a total of 71 people were trapped. Rescue workers are searching for another three people who remain missing.

On Tuesday, 10 injured had been discharged from local hospital.

Construction of the building, with a floor area of around 7,000 square meters, began in 2013. It was converted into a hotel in 2018 with 66 rooms.

READ MORE: 10 killed, 22 missing in Quanzhou hotel collapse

The hotel collapse is a production accident as the building had been illegally reconstructed several times, Shang Yong, deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM), told a press conference on Tuesday.

The MEM has pledged to launch a comprehensive accident investigation to identify the cause, he added.