Woman jumps to her death to escape apartment building fire
Print Edition
ONE person died and 11 others were injured after a fire broke out in a five-story residential complex on Qixia Road, Pudong New Area, early yesterday, police said.
The victim was a woman in her thirties who jumped from the fourth floor to escape the fire and later died in hospital as a result of head injuries, according to Shanghai East Hospital. Among the injured, the youngest was 3 years old and the eldest was 74, it added.
Police said they received the fire report at 2:40am. Firefighters put out the blaze in about 20 minutes and managed to rescue 26 residents.
According to a preliminary investigation, the fire started at an appliance repair business on the first floor.
A male resident, who jumped from the second floor, suffered a broken leg. Another eight suffered slight burns and were later transferred to Ruijin Hospital. The others suffered only light injuries and were released.
“I was asleep and got woken up by yelling downstairs, people crying ‘fire! fire,’ at about 1:30am,” Chen Xiaoliang, the 34-year-old who jumped from the second floor, told Shanghai Daily at the hospital.
“I immediately woke up my two kids and my wife. The fire seemed rather big from the window,” he said.
“When we tried to run through the door, the smoke pushed us back to the room.”
Chen soon passed his two kids, one aged three and the other aged 9, out through the window, and the children were safely caught by neighbors on the first floor. Chen’s wife also safely climbed down from the window.
“It’s only at the second floor and should be fine, but at that moment a wave of fire was coming towards me suddenly. So I jumped out of panic and broke my leg,” he said.
There were 28 households with 45 residents living in the complex, most of whom were tenants, xinmin.cn said.
According to Ruijin Hospital, all eight injured transferred to the hospital are in stable condition and the worst hit victim had 13 percent burns to his body. The injured include a 3-year-old girl, who suffered burns over 2 percent of her body, mostly on her face and left arm.
An unnamed resident reportedly said the fire was worst on the first, fourth and fifth floors, while the second and third floors were only inundated with smoke.
When Shanghai Daily arrived at the old residential complex, it was empty and one side of it was sealed off with large plastic sheets. Security guards were patrolling around it.
A neighborhood committee official, who declined to be identified, told Shanghai Daily that all the residents living in the building had been housed in nearby hotels and that they were still looking for witnesses to assist with the investigation.
Two local residents, who didn’t give their names, said they heard an explosion at the appliance repair store, one of many businesses on the ground floor of residential buildings along the street.
Some residents said there have been several fires in the area in recent years.
“These houses all have wooden staircases that could catch fire easily. Though there are fire sprinklers in the building, they didn’t work last night.”
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