A hospital director in China has been arrested after a fire that killed 29 people at its Beijing facility, one of the worst disasters in the capital in more than two decades, authorities said on Wednesday.
• Also read: Investigations in Beijing after hospital fire that killed 21 people
That fire on Tuesday forced patients to flee through windows by hanging from sheets and take refuge on air conditioners on the facade, according to images posted on social media and quickly censored.
The report was delivered by Li Zongrong, vice mayor of the Fengtai district where the hospital is located, who offered his “sincere condolences” at a press conference.
“We feel deep remorse and guilt,” he told reporters, also apologizing to people across the city.
Among the victims were 16 women and 13 men, he said.
For their part, the municipal police announced the arrest of 12 people, including the director of the hospital and employees of the company responsible for the renovation of the building.
The fire was caused by “sparks produced during internal renovation work,” according to a preliminary investigation cited by state broadcaster CCTV.
These sparks “ignited the volatile substances of the combustible paint at the construction site,” the investigation states.
Charred beds and blackened walls
A heavy police presence was still seen around the facility as of Wednesday morning, trying to deter groups of passers-by who were watching and filming with their cellphones, AFP journalists noted.
The building’s main entrance appeared largely intact from the outside, but pictures of the interior released by business outlet Caixin show beds completely charred and walls blackened.
Soot-stained windows and walls and a broken pane can be seen on a facade of the hospital complex.
The warning of a fire at Changfeng Hospital was issued just before 1pm (5am GMT) on Tuesday and the disaster was cleared half an hour later, according to local media.
Of the 29 victims, 26 were patients, two hospital workers and one a relative of a patient, according to CCTV.
The 78 patients still in the facility have been moved to the west wing, according to the same source.
According to the city administration, 39 people injured in the fire were hospitalized on Wednesday morning.
online censorship
This fire is the worst in the Chinese capital in more than twenty years. In June 2002, a fire at an Internet café killed 25 students.
Images of people sheltering from the flames, sitting on air conditioners installed in front of the hospital or clinging to sheets before jumping out of the building, were shared on social media.
“The top priority is treating the injured,” said Yin Li, Secretary of the Communist Party in Beijing, who traveled there, according to the Beijing Daily.
Several families of patients say they have lost contact with loved ones, with the missing patients mostly being elderly who are having trouble getting around, the China Youth Daily, an official newspaper, said on Wednesday.
Changfeng Hospital is located in western Beijing, about a 25-minute drive from Tiananmen Square.
On the Chinese social network Weibo on Wednesday, internet users complained about the online censorship that was quickly applied to the drama.
precedents
“So many people have died. It’s a major security incident and oddly enough, it’s not as popular as one celebrity insulting another.
“You’re doing a good job of removing (this information) from the most searched terms” on the social network, joked another.
Fatal fires are quite common in China due to poor safety standards and corruption among enforcement officials. But they are rarer in Beijing.
In November 2022, a residential building fire in Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang (northwest) region, killed 10 people, sparking a popular anger movement against anti-COVID health restrictions, which have been accused of hampering the work of emergency services.
Also in November, a factory fire in Anyang (central city) killed 38 people, with authorities accusing workers of abuse.