Capital evicts tenants citywide after 19 killed in fire

Beijing cleared safety hazards, including illegally rented houses, after a fire in city's Daxing district killed 19 people last week.

District governments in Beijing have set strict deadlines for tenants to move out of illegal-constructed buildings.

People living in an apartment close to Chaoyang district's Dongba suburb park, for example, were told to move out before Wednesday noon after firemen informed them the day before, news site caixin.com reported Thursday.

Inspections will run from November 19 until the end of December, according to a government circular released on Wednesday.

Nineteen people died of carbon monoxide poisoning after fire broke out on November 18 in a freezer room, China Central Television reported on Thursday.

The freezer room was in the ground floor of the two-storey building with more than 400 tenants, the report said.

Those who rented basement apartments would be asked to move out, with basements illegally used for manufacturing, storage or housing to be targeted, it added.

"Illegal group-lease buildings are popular places for low income migrants. However, such places are usually crowded with higher safety risks," Niu Fengrui, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute for Urban and Environmental Studies, told the Global Times.

The campaign does not target migrants in Beijing or is not aimed at driving them out of the capital, he added.