Patients use bedsheets to escape from windows as fire engulfs hospital
As smoke billowed out of the burning hospital in Beijing, China, desperate patients jumped out of windows using bedsheets tied together.
Dramatic eyewitness footage showed a survivor dangling out the window before dropping themselves onto a lower platform on Tuesday afternoon.
Others huddled on air-conditioning units sticking out of the Changfeng Hospital windows in desperate attempts to shelter from the flames.
A dozen people have been arrested in connection to the blaze that Beijing authorities say claimed the lives of 29 people.
All but three of the victims – that included 16 women and 13 men – were patients. The average age of the victims was 71.
Another 39 people were hospitalised in critical or serious condition. Three have been discharged.
At least 142 patients and staff were evacuated as the fire tore through the hospital out from the inpatient ward, state media CGTN reported.
The fire broke out at around 12:57pm local time in the hospital’s east wing, which mainly treats severely ill patients, and was extinguished half an hour later.
Officials have attributed to fire – the deadliest in the Chinese capital in two cases – to possible negligence after ‘sparks’ from construction ignited flammable paint.
But the fire came as a shock for some Beijing locals who didn’t even have a clue about the fire as Chinese censors scrubbed all mentions of the flames clean.
One Weibo user said the learnt of the news on CNN, an American news network, according to FreeWeibo, a website that monitors censored and deleted Weibo posts.
Another asked: ‘Why is it necessary to prohibit comments on this matter?’
‘It has been 12 hours since the incident… but it can’t be searched,’ said a third user in a since-deleted post.
‘Just imagine, 21 people died, and what happened in Beijing didn’t make any waves.’
The censors – which jump into action during disasters – appeared to ease Wednesday morning, as the fire became a trending topic on Chinese social media.
At a news conference today, city officials said a nurse, a medical staffer and a patient’s relative died in the fire that erupted in southwest Beijing.
Zhao Yang, an official at Beijing’s fire department, added at the 20-minute-long conference that the fire was caused by ‘sparks generated during the internal renovation and construction of the inpatient department of the hospital’.
These sparks, a preliminary investigation has shown, ‘ignited the volatile elements of the flammable paint on the site’.
Fengtai district deputy mayor Li Zongrong expressed his ‘deep condolences’ over the deaths.
‘We feel deep remorse and guilt,’ he added.
‘I hereby express our deep condolences for the victims, and express our sincere respects to the victims’ families, the injured and their relatives and apologise to the people of the whole city,’
Twelve people, including the hospital’s director and deputy director, as well as the head of the construction company overseeing the construction works, have been arrested, according to the state-run People’s Daily.
The authorities are investigating whether they violated safety management policies, Sun Haitao, a city security official, said.
Yin Li, the highest-ranking Communist Party official in Beijing, visited the gutted hospital on Tuesday night, according to the Beijing Daily, the city’s official newspaper.
‘This fire is distressing, and the lesson is extremely profound,’ he said.
‘It sounded the alarm for us, reminding us that (fire safety procedures) cannot be loosened even for a moment.’
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