At least 11 people have died following a fire on Friday at a
hotel in Yiwu, Zhejiang province.
The fire brigade was alerted to the blaze at the suburban
Chengshuai Hotel at 1:50 am.
Firefighters rescued 23 people from the hotel, 15 of whom
required hospital treatment.?11 of those later died, according
to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.
There is currently no information regarding the total number of
people in the hotel at the time of the fire, which took an hour to
extinguish.
Local officials, including Yiwu Party Secretary Wu Weirong and
Mayor He Meihua, arrived on the scene soon after the fire was
reported to help coordinate the rescue effort.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation, Xinhua said.
The Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday that 10,360
fires were reported across the country during the Lunar New Year
holiday, which claimed the lives of 59 people and caused economic
losses of 23.8 million yuan (US$3.3 million).
Some 23,000 firefighters were dispatched to the fires, helping
to save 7,741 lives, the ministry said.
In Beijing alone, there were 472 fires during the holiday, about
three times as many as over the same period last year.
According to the Beijing Morning Post, about a third of
the fires were caused by fireworks.
On New Year's Eve, 246 fires broke out in the capital, 85 of
which were caused by fireworks, the newspaper reported.
The ministry said there were no fires at major public venues in
Beijing, where 2,500 firefighters and 270 vehicles had been
stationed over the seven-day holiday.
Meanwhile, in response to the fire at the historic gate of
Namdaemun in Seoul on Sunday, the State Administration of Cultural
Heritage (SACH) on Thursday issued an urgent notice urging cultural
authorities to be alert to potential fire risks.
The SACH received seven reports of fires that damaged cultural
relics last year, four of which involved important artifacts
protected at the national level, the notice on the SACH's website
said.
(China Daily February 16, 2008)