Beijing, Nov. 26 (BNA): A fire broke out in a residential building in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, killing 10 people and injuring nine, amid tight lockdowns that have left many residents in the region stranded in their homes for more than three years, authorities said Friday. months.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the fire broke out Thursday night in the regional capital, Urumqi, where temperatures dropped below zero after dark.
Flames spread upward from the 15th floor to the 17th floor, with smoke billowing to the 21st floor, according to multiple state media reports. The fire took about three hours to be extinguished.
Reports said that the deaths and injuries were caused by inhalation of toxic fumes, and those who were taken to hospital were expected to survive. It seems that the preliminary investigation showed that the fire broke out from an electrical strip in a bedroom in one of the apartments on the fifteenth floor.
One Uyghur living in exile in Switzerland said he learned from a call to a neighbor that his aunt and four of her children had died in the fire.
“She was a wonderful woman, always thinking about her children and how to treat and educate them well,” Abdul Hafeez Mohamed Amin said while crying during a phone interview. “My heart is really broken, I can’t take it.”
Xinjiang has been under harsh lockdowns for more than three months to combat the spread of the coronavirus under China’s “zero COVID” policy. The country has suffered a wave of cases in recent weeks, prompting an ongoing lockdown and severe travel restrictions affecting hundreds of millions of people.
Videos circulating on social media showed an arc of water from a distant fire truck not reaching the level of the flames, sparking waves of angry comments online. Some said fire trucks were stopped by anti-epidemic barriers or stranded cars after their owners were quarantined, but why the truck was so far away is not clear.
Many Xinjiang residents are frustrated with China’s harsh control of COVID-19. In September, some reported going hungry amid spotty food deliveries.
Muhammad Amin said Xinjiang is an “open prison.” “The Chinese government does not care about their lives.”
Urumqi Mayor Memtemin Kadir apologized to the city’s residents during a press conference on Friday evening and announced the formation of a government team to investigate the fire.
During the press conference, Urumqi authorities said that the fire escape doors were not closed and residents were allowed to go downstairs to “do activities” since the community has been designated as a “low-risk area for COVID-19.”
“Some residents’ ability to save themselves was very weak…and they failed to escape in time,” said Li Wensheng, head of the Urumqi City Rescue Department.
Mohamed Amin disputes this account, citing social media posts in which many apartment residents were said to have been confined to their homes due to COVID-19 controls. Another post said that residents were only allowed to go down for a few hours a day, and were not free to come and go out of the building. The Associated Press has not been able to independently verify the claims in the social media posts.
Urumqi has not had a major outbreak recently, with only 977 cases reported on Friday, almost all of them asymptomatic. However, as in many parts of China, local officials who fear losing their jobs tend to take more extreme measures to prevent an outbreak within their jurisdictions.
The tragedy comes days after 38 people were killed in a fire at an industrial trading company in central China caused by welding sparks that ignited cotton fabrics.
Four people have been arrested over the fire that occurred on Monday in the city of Anyang and local authorities have ordered comprehensive safety inspections to root out potential dangers.
M