As Crews Race To Build Wuhan Hospitals, Other China Projects Grind to a Halt

At the Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, China, crews lift a modular unit in place for a medical isolation unit for novel coronavirus victims. Photo courtesy Construction Times

Two makeshift, modular hospitals, Huoshenshan and Leishenshan, are set for completion during the first week of February in Wuhan, China, after just a few days of construction to treat victims of the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV, reports Construction Times, an independent Chinese construction publication.

Wuhan officials were requested to build Huoshenshan Hospital on Jan. 23, and crews began leveling the 50,000-sq-meter site the next night, excavating about150,000 cu meters of earth, said the publication, an ENR publishing partner.

The building area encompasses 25,000 sq m, and will include 1,000 beds, with completion expected by Feb. 3. Construction Times reports that there are nearly 700 project managers, more than 4,000 workers working 24/7 in two shifts and nearly 1,000 large-scale pieces of equipment and transport vehicles on site.

As of Jan. 30, site leveling, sand backfilling and HDPE membrane laying had been completed, and 95% of the foundation concrete pouring was done. This allowed crews to begin mobilizing, modifying and on-site hoisting the modular units. Other work includes pipeline trench excavation and fit-out of a sewage treatment “room.”

The city began work on the Leishenshan Hospital on Jan. 25, with a total construction area of about 30,000 sq ms, accommodating about 1,500 beds and providing 2,000 medical staff with living and working space.

Construction Times reports that work will be complete on Feb. 4, and the hospital delivered for use by Feb. 5. As of a Jan. 30 report, construction had reached 40% completion. There will be a total of 1,518 modular containers used, with about 300 sets of off-site modifications completed and 30 hoistings that had occurred on site.

As crews race to build the hospitals, construction in many parts of China has come to a standstill.

With many project sites shut down already due to the Chinese Spring Festival, also known as the Lunar New Year, 10 provinces and cities—including Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Liaoning, Yunnan and Jilin—issued notices to delay the resumption of work until no earlier than Feb 9.

Many local housing and rural-urban departments have issued suspensions of work as well, including Henan, Nanjing, Tianjin, Jinan, Hefei and Dongguan.

Construction firms are not allowed to start projects without permission, Construction Times reports.

Blair leads day-to-day operations of the ENR editorial team to ensure brand quality and further best practices. He spearheads ENR's various competitions, including Best Projects and the Award of Excellence, and organizes editorial content at events including the Top Young Professionals conference. A Jesse H. Neal, Construction Media Alliance and AZBEES-award-winning writer and videographer, Blair frequently contributes to ENR’s burgeoning video channel with project tour videos and interviews with industry leaders. He is also a frequent speaker and moderator on topics such as diversity and inclusion, design and jobsite technology, construction means and methods and marketing.

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