Beijing: A restaurant fire in northeast China killed 22 people and injured three Tuesday, April 29, said the Beijing State media, with images published online showing ferocious flames engulfing the building.
The fire broke out at lunchtime in the city of Liaoyang, about 580 km northeast of the Beijing capital, according to the CCTV state diffuser.
“The incident led to 22 deaths and three injuries,” he added.
President Xi Jinping said that the fire had caused “important victims” and that his lessons were “deeply serious,” the video surveillance said.
XI called for “all efforts to treat the wounded, properly manage the consequences of the deceased and provide support for their families, quickly determine the cause of the fire and continue responsibility in accordance with the law,” added the report.
Images shared online and verified by AFP have shown that hell engulfing the two -story restaurant and smoke swinging towards the sky.
Other authenticated videos published on Doryin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, have shown that paramedical paramedics were rolling a victim on a stretcher in an ambulance and several firefighters fighting against flames with pipes.
Another video of the social media platform shot from above the stage has shown more than a dozen fire trucks parked outside the restaurant.
“Very tragic”
A woman working in a neighboring restaurant said that she did not go out all day and only learned the incident when she read press articles on the fire.
“We were not aware of this and we continued normally,” she told AFP by phone.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, said that she had “no idea” of what caused the fire but said that she had heard sirens and that there were still police outside her restaurant.
“It was really very tragic,” she added.
Mortal fires are relatively common in China due to the Lax building codes and an approach often Slipshod for work safety.
The country has experienced a series of these fatal incidents in recent months.
This month, 20 people died in a fire in a nursing home in the province of Hebei in northern China.
And in January, a fire in a plant market in the city of Zhangjiakou, northwest of Beijing, killed eight people and injured 15.
A month before that, nine people died in a fire on a construction site in the city of Rongcheng in eastern China.
