6 children killed as fire hits privately run kids shelter
By Li Qian |
January 5, 2013, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SIX children and a young man died and another child was seriously injured in a blaze that broke out yesterday morning in a small home that served as an unlicensed private orphanage in Lankao County in central China's Henan Province.
Four of the victims were killed at the scene and the other three died en route to hospital. Four of the dead were boys and two were girls, aged between seven months and five years. Some were mentally retarded, China Central Television said. The young man suffered from polio.
An 10-year-old boy was being treated for respiratory injuries at the intensive care unit of a hospital in Kaifeng City.
Police said the shelter was located at the home of Yuan Lihai, a stall owner once dubbed by media as a "benevolent mother" who had cared for over 100 abandoned babies in the past 27 years.
Yuan was brought to police for questioning yesterday, but the details were unclear, according to the China News Service. It was not known if she was home at the time of the fire.
Firefighters who were called to the fire at 8:42am arrived six minutes later and put out the fire at 9:10am, CCTV reported.
Yuan was raising 34 orphans and abandoned children, 16 of them disabled, at the time of the fire, Xinhua news agency said, citing Lankao's Civil Affairs Bureau.
She kept them at two places, one a two-story building behind the Laokao People's Hospital and the other a two-room bungalow house to the west of the hospital. The fire was at the two-story building.
Yuan, 48, hired workers to take care of the children's daily necessities, Xinhua said.
The older children Yuan cared for were in school at the time. It is not known how many children were home at the time.
The Lankao Civil Affairs Bureau turned a blind eye to Yuan's operation because the local government is cash-strapped and was unwilling to create more places for orphans to live, Life Week magazine reported.
Yuan started raising foundlings in 1986 after she got married and had her own children. "If I don't raise them, they will die," she told Life Week in an interview.
She adopted seven or eight children in 1993 and hospitals and police later started sending abandoned children to her. She separated from her husband in 1995, the magazine reported.
One of Yuan's adopted children, in his 20s, was often taking care of the others, reports said.
The civil affairs bureau said yesterday that temporary shelters will be built for most of the surviving children, and teachers and doctors would be recruited to serve them. Five infants will go to the Kaifeng Social Welfare House orphanage, they said.
Four of the victims were killed at the scene and the other three died en route to hospital. Four of the dead were boys and two were girls, aged between seven months and five years. Some were mentally retarded, China Central Television said. The young man suffered from polio.
An 10-year-old boy was being treated for respiratory injuries at the intensive care unit of a hospital in Kaifeng City.
Police said the shelter was located at the home of Yuan Lihai, a stall owner once dubbed by media as a "benevolent mother" who had cared for over 100 abandoned babies in the past 27 years.
Yuan was brought to police for questioning yesterday, but the details were unclear, according to the China News Service. It was not known if she was home at the time of the fire.
Firefighters who were called to the fire at 8:42am arrived six minutes later and put out the fire at 9:10am, CCTV reported.
Yuan was raising 34 orphans and abandoned children, 16 of them disabled, at the time of the fire, Xinhua news agency said, citing Lankao's Civil Affairs Bureau.
She kept them at two places, one a two-story building behind the Laokao People's Hospital and the other a two-room bungalow house to the west of the hospital. The fire was at the two-story building.
Yuan, 48, hired workers to take care of the children's daily necessities, Xinhua said.
The older children Yuan cared for were in school at the time. It is not known how many children were home at the time.
The Lankao Civil Affairs Bureau turned a blind eye to Yuan's operation because the local government is cash-strapped and was unwilling to create more places for orphans to live, Life Week magazine reported.
Yuan started raising foundlings in 1986 after she got married and had her own children. "If I don't raise them, they will die," she told Life Week in an interview.
She adopted seven or eight children in 1993 and hospitals and police later started sending abandoned children to her. She separated from her husband in 1995, the magazine reported.
One of Yuan's adopted children, in his 20s, was often taking care of the others, reports said.
The civil affairs bureau said yesterday that temporary shelters will be built for most of the surviving children, and teachers and doctors would be recruited to serve them. Five infants will go to the Kaifeng Social Welfare House orphanage, they said.
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