15 dead, 44 injured in residential building fire in Nanjing, China
- Blaze broke out early on Friday morning in an area where electric bikes had been parked
- Parking electric bicycles or charging them inside buildings has been banned since 2018 because of fire concerns
Authorities in southeastern China are investigating whether electric bikes are to blame for a fire that erupted in a residential building early on Friday morning, killing at least 15 people, according to mainland media reports.
The blaze started at 4.39am from a ground-level area where electric bikes were parked in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and was extinguished by 6am, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
At least 44 people were injured and more than 500 affected residents were relocated to hotels.
Residents were woken by the sound of an explosion and saw the fire surge upwards, according to reports from state-owned China National Radio.
Footage posted online showed residents on higher floors of the building in Yuhuatai district screaming for help.
Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper quoted a heavily pregnant woman and her husband as saying they covered themselves with wet pillowcases to shield themselves from smoke in their escape from the 30th floor.
A team has been set up to investigate the incident.
Parking electric bicycles or charging them inside buildings was banned in 2018 when the Ministry of Public Security introduced rules in response to safety fears.
In an interview with People’s Daily, a Beijing fire official estimated that about 80 per cent of fires related to electric bikes occurred during charging, and 90 per cent of casualties in electric bike fires occurred when the vehicles were placed in areas such as hallways, corridors, or stairwells.
The Paper said residents at the Nanjing complex expressed safety concerns about parking electric bikes in the building in the aftermath of a fire in 2019.
Those complaints were part of a Nanjing television programme on fire hazards in April 2022, which prompted officials to say they would install more firefighting equipment within the building, according to The Paper.
Many cities in China, including Nanjing and Beijing, have opened channels to encourage residents to report cases of electric bikes being parked inside the building or taken in a lift.
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Fire engulfs 42-storey skyscraper in central Chinese city of Changsha
At a press conference on Saturday morning, Nanjing mayor Chen Zhichang bowed and apologised to the public, according to footage posted online.
Jiangsu Communist Party chief Xin Changxing and governor Xu Kunlin also visited the injured in hospital
In January, a blaze at a shophouse in Xinyu, a city in southeastern Jiangxi province, claimed 39 lives, Most of those who died were students studying for an exam.
