Deadly warehouse blaze still smoldering
Print Edition
A WAREHOUSE blaze that killed five firefighters on Friday still hadn’t been completely extinguished by yesterday morning.
The open flames had been put out by about 11am on Saturday but a residential building next to the warehouse in Harbin, a city in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, was still smoldering, firefighters said.
An investigation into the source of the blaze was being hampered by the building’s complicated structure, they said, and it was in danger of collapse.
There has been much criticism of the local government for using 258 words out of a 500-word statement to describe how local officials had “attached great importance to the fire.”
According to the statement, which sparked anger online, the provincial propaganda chief was “at the scene commanding the rescue,” while the firefighting chief was “coordinating.”
Meanwhile, the city’s fire department denied accusations that firefighters had been ordered to enter the building after residents had been evacuated.
Several newspapers blamed inexperience for the tragedy. Most firefighters in China are enlisted military personel and serve a fixed term of two years.
Three of the firefighters who died were in their teens. The youngest was 18 and it was his first firefighting mission.
The men who died were buried by debris on the second floor just over eight hours after the blaze broke out at 1:14pm on Friday. The third floor had been destroyed.
Another 14 of their colleagues were injured.
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