Twenty-three staffers at a hospital in Qatar were injured when tents being used to boost capacity in response to coronavirus collapsed in a fierce storm, local media reported on Friday.
Winds of up to 72 kilometres per hour (45 miles per hour) caused two temporary tent annexes at Hazm Mebaireek General Hospital in Qatar’s Industrial Area to collapse on Thursday, the Gulf Times reported.
No patients were hurt and most injuries to staff at the facility, 20 kilometres southwest of central Doha, were minor, the daily added, citing the health ministry.
During the gale-force winds on Thursday, a Qatar Airways Boeing 787 on the ground was blown into a nearby Airbus A350 at Doha’s Hamad airport causing minor damage but no injuries, the airline said in a statement.
The Industrial Area is a gritty, densely-populated district that is home to mostly migrant labourers and has been the epicentre of Qatar’s outbreak.
Tens of thousands of residents were quarantined in the area after cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed among the community in mid-March.
Gas-rich Qatar — home to hundreds of thousands of foreign labourers working on projects linked to the 2022 World Cup — has reported 12 deaths and 14,096 cases of the Covid-19 respiratory disease.
