In China, flames devastated a skyscraper in the large city of Changsha in the center of the country on Friday. The fire, now extinguished, struck the building of the telephone operator China Telecom in this city of 10 million inhabitants. Images broadcast on CCTV public television showed huge and powerful orange flames ravaging an entire side of the building, which has 42 levels above ground.
Videos posted on social media show extremely thick black smoke rising from the building and passersby fleeing to avoid being hit by the glowing debris falling from the sky. “According to a preliminary investigation, the fire” would have broken out on an outer wall of the building, “firefighters in the province said.
“The fire was extinguished and no victims were found,” they said, saying they received the first call for help at 15:48 (07:48 GMT). “The fire was extinguished around 4:30 pm” and “(telephone) communications were not interrupted,” China Telecom said, confirming the absence of a victim for the time being.
Construction on the skyscraper was completed in 2000, according to CCTV. This relative modernity of the building could partly explain the absence of casualties for the time being, fire drills are regularly practiced in buildings in large cities.
However, deadly fires regularly occur in China, where the sometimes lax enforcement of safety instructions and illegal construction can make it difficult to evacuate a burning building.
In June 2021, a fire at a martial arts school in central Henan province killed 18 people, most of them students aged between seven and 16.
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