Corruption & Inadequate Safety Result In Fire: 38 Dead
BEGING, China – Thirty-eight people were killed and six others injured after a fire broke out at a nursing home in central China late Monday, the Administration of Work Safety in Henan province said in a statement.
Rescue operations were underway, according to officials in Pingdingshan, which lies some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southwest of Beijing. The fire swept through an apartment building, part of which was being used as a rest home for old people.
State broadcaster CCTV said around 130 people were in the care home when the blaze broke out in an area for paralyzed residents.
The fire was put out an hour later, China News Service said.
The cause of the fire remained unclear, but a provincial television station quoted another resident blaming an electrical fault. The building was built from steel with flammable foam fillings, the state-run China News Service said Tuesday.
“The bodies were so badly burnt, we couldn’t tell who was who,” Xinhua quoted one victim’s relative saying of the identification process.
Overcrowded
One of the survivors, 82-year-old Zhao Yulan, told the official Chinese news agency that she was rescued from her room, which she shared with 11 other people. “Only myself and one other roommate managed to get out,” she said.
Pingdingshan survivor Chen Runde, 80, told China News Service the home had “too many” residents and the workers “cannot attend to all of us”. “We cannot find an attendant once night falls,” he said.
Corruption
Industrial accidents and fires are common in China, where enforcement of safety standards can be lax, with some property and business owners paying off corrupt officials to look the other way.
In 2013, a poultry plant in the China’s northeast territory killed 121 and injured 76 people. Only about 100 workers managed to escape that fire unharmed. Reports at the time said managers had locked doors inside the factory to prevent workers from going to the restroom, leading to the high death toll.
The current and previous plant managers were sentenced to 9 and 4 years in jail respectively, and a $160,000 (U.S. Dollar equivalent) in fines for not ensuring safety measures were in place, and for installing substandard equipment.
The Associated Press reported the court also found the former chief of the local fire department, and his deputy guilty of abusing their powers and ordered up to five-and-a-half years in jail for both of them. Prosecutors had claimed that the two did not conduct inspections at the plant and gave false information after the accident in an attempt to cover up their corruption.