(Beijing) A fire in a shopping mall in southwest China has killed at least 16 people, according to a new report released Thursday by the official Xinhua news agency.
The fire broke out, for reasons that are not yet known, early in the evening in Zigong, a city of 2.5 million inhabitants in the province of Sichuan, located 1,600 kilometers from Beijing.
Rescue operations ended around 3 a.m. Thursday (3 p.m. Eastern Time, Wednesday), according to local rescue services cited by Xinhua.
Around 30 people were taken into care by emergency services, state television CCTV reported.
The fire killed at least 16 people, the official Xinhua news agency reported Thursday, citing local rescue officials.
The shopping center is located at the foot of a building that has 14 floors, the channel stressed, specifying that the flames had reached the ground floor, as well as the 4e5e and 6e floors.
CCTV footage showed thick black smoke billowing from a building overlooking a shopping street.
Other images shared on social media, but whose authenticity AFP has not been able to verify, show onlookers in front of a burning building, which corresponds to that shown by state television.
Fire trucks and ambulances are nearby.
In drone footage filmed in the evening and transmitted to AFP, a gigantic fire hose is in action against the building.
Emergency vehicle flashing lights are visible in the surrounding area.
Precedents
“As of 8:20 p.m. (8:20 a.m. Eastern Time), the fire was extinguished,” CCTV said.
“The firefighters are making every effort to manage the situation,” Zigong emergency services said in a statement, calling on the population “not to believe or amplify rumours.”
Zigong, with a population of 2.4 million, is known for its salt production and numerous dinosaur fossils.
The city’s emergency services were alerted at 6:11 p.m. local time (6:11 a.m. Eastern Time) and immediately dispatched firefighters to extinguish the blaze, CCTV said.
Fires and other fatal accidents are common in China because of sometimes lax enforcement of safety standards.
In January, at least 39 people died in a store fire in Xinyu, in central Jiangxi province.
The fire started in the basement of a shop when workers “broke rules” during construction, authorities said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping then called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to avoid further tragedies.
The same month, a fire in a residential building killed at least 15 people.
Five days earlier, 13 schoolchildren had lost their lives in a fire in a dormitory at a boarding school.
Last year, a rare fire in a Beijing hospital in April killed 29 people and forced desperate patients to jump out of windows to escape.