Jilin raises special fund to aid shopping mall fire victims

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 19, 2004

Jilin raises special fund to aid shopping mall fire victims

The government of Jilin City has raised 1.25 million yuan to purchase medicine and medical equipment for the people injured in a shopping mall fire, local officials said Wednesday.

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The government of Jilin City has raised 1.25 million yuan to purchase medicine and medical equipment for the people injured in a shopping mall fire, local officials said on Feb. 19.

The deadly blaze in Jilin City started at 11 a.m. Sunday on the second floor of the Zhongbai Shopping Mall, where crowds of people were doing weekend shopping, leaving 53 people dead and 70 others injured.

Of the 70 injured, the three most-seriously-hurt victims, who breathed poisonous chemical gas during the blaze, have gradually recovered, and are in stable condition, according to the fire rescue headquarters. They are under 24-hour medical monitoring conducted by a special team of experts.

A sufficient supply of blood for transfusions has been ensured at the local hospitals, which have been ordered to treat any person injured in the fire, regardless of the cost.

Most of the bodies have been identified, and the headquarters has published a list of 52 identified victims, most of whom were residents of the neighborhood of the shopping mall.

At 4 p.m. Wednesday, the first fire victim was cremated, and the city government has sent 53 work teams to express sympathy and solicitude to the victims' families and help them deal with the aftermath.

On Wednesday morning, technical experts sent by the State Council, China's cabinet, confirmed that the fire had been caused by a discarded cigarette, which ignited inflammable goods at the shopping mall's No. 3 storehouse.

The suspect, Yu Hongxin, 35, has been detained by local police.

Experts said the fact that no one raised the alarm in time was the main reason for the large number of deaths.

Police found that for about half hour after the fire started, the staffs in the shopping mall tried to put out the fire themselves, and no one dialed 119 for help. It was not until 11:28a.m. when a passer-by saw black smoke billowing from the mall, and called the police.

"They missed the opportunity to save lives inside the building, as most of the victims were asphyxiated in the first 28 minutes," said an expert, who refused to give his name.

Experts said the shopping mall managers did not fulfill their duty to direct the customers to evacuate the mall. Questioning of 49 survivors showed that 37 of the interviewed said there was no one at the scene to direct the customers to safety.

The police also found that the fire-fighting apparatus in the mall was not properly utilized, and some emergency exits were locked at the time of the fire.

Built in the 1990s, the four-story building at a downtown crossroads linking two major streets accommodated 111 shops and 132 shopkeepers, who have reported a total property loss of 3.2 million yuan (about 385,000 US dollars).

Governor of Jilin Province Hong Hu Wednesday made a apology to the general public for the fatal fire in an open letter to leaders of cities and prefectures in the northeast China province, which appeared in Wednesday's Jilin Daily and other local media.

He also urged officials in charge of production safety in all cities and prefectures to heighten their sense of responsibility, draw lessons from the devastating fire, and implement all preventative measures.

Meanwhile, an overall safety inspection will be carried out throughout the province, mainly targeting mines, transportation, public places, forests and grasslands.

Source: Xinhua

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