A massive skyscraper fire on Friday kept the fire brigade in the Chinese metropolis of Changsha in suspense. The fire department finally announced that the fire in the 42-story office building had been extinguished. No injuries or deaths have been found so far. According to state media, the fire, which apparently broke out on an outer wall of the building, ripped through dozens of floors of the building.
However, the great fire “has been extinguished and we have not found any victims”, the fire department said in online networks. A preliminary investigation showed that the fire first occurred “on an outer wall of the building”.
Huge flames erupted, as shown by images posted on online networks. After the fire was extinguished, the charred facade of the building was cooled with water.
The offices of state-owned telecommunications company China Telecom are located in the 218-meter-tall skyscraper. The company said that, according to preliminary information, there were no casualties in the fire and that telecommunications were not affected either. Information on the possible cause of the fire was not initially provided.
people running away
State broadcaster CCTV initially reported that a thick plume of smoke was rising above the skyscraper and several dozen floors were on fire. In a video posted to online networks, dozens of people were seen fleeing the building and burning debris falling from the upper floors. The authenticity of the video could not be verified initially. According to CCTV, the office building was completed in 2000. It is therefore close to a major ring road.
Changsha is the capital of Hunan Province and is located in the southeast of the People’s Republic. It has about ten million inhabitants.
Fatal fires are not uncommon in China due to lax enforcement of safety regulations and an increasing number of unauthorized construction. In July last year, at least 15 people died and another 25 were injured in a fire at a warehouse in the northeastern province of Jilin.
In June 2021, a fire at a martial arts center in Henan Province killed 18 people, most of them children. After that, calls for better fire protection standards in China became higher. In 2010, 58 people died in a fire in a 28-story building in Shanghai.