© Stringer - Getty Images Authorities in Wuhan, China are building a hospital in the region to isolate and treat patients of the coronavirus—and they plan to finish in just six days.

Wuhan, China is the epicenter of a new type of coronavirus that has infected more than 830 people and killed as many as 26 throughout China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, and the United States. To tackle the crisis, the city began construction on a 1,000-bed temporary hospital in Wuhan’s Caidian district Thursday evening. Officials have said they plan to finish the project in just six days.

That's right: six days.

Hundreds of workers are already at the bustling six-acre construction site, operating diggers and other heavy equipment. According to the Changjiang Daily, more than 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers were dispatched to the scene Thursday evening—many from China Construction Third Engineering Bureau. Locals in the region told the South China Morning Post the city is paying workers as much as 1,200 yuan (about $173) per day in an attempt to quicken the pace.

© Stringer - Getty Images Excavators flatten land in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the Wuhan virus epidemic. The city plans to complete the construction of a temporary hospital in just six days.

If you're wondering just how this is possible, Chinese officials have taken on such projects before, like when they built a similar temporary facility in Beijing during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Officials completed that hospital, which also held 1,000 beds, in just a week, by a workforce of over 7,000. Over the course of two months, the hospital staff treated nearly 15 percent of SARS patients there, according to the Post.

Sources told the Post that blueprints would be released by the Wuhan CITIC Design Institute today, and that the site would be “delivered for inspection” within six days. The prefabricated building will reportedly be one to two stories tall and will be composed of 20 “blocks,” which will house a yet-to-be-determined number of patients. Workers would even celebrate a Lunar New Year's Eve dinner at the construction site.

To combat the spread of the respiratory illness, China has decided to impose a travel limit on 35 million people in the region. No one from Wuhan or the 12 nearby cities will be allowed to travel in the coming days, even as the country celebrates the Lunar New Year, its busiest travel holiday.

Social media posts revealed a chaotic scenes at Wuhan’s medical facilities, with several patients being turned away due to a lack of personnel and resources. Several of the region’s hospitals have actually put out calls for the public to donate supplies including face masks, goggles, and medical gowns, The Guardian reported.