Northeast China restaurant fire kills 22

BEIJING: A restaurant fire in northeastern China killed 22 people and injured three on Tuesday, Beijing´s state media said, with footage posted online showing fierce flames engulfing the building.

The blaze erupted at lunchtime in Liaoyang City, about 580-kms northeast of the capital Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV. “The incident has resulted in 22 deaths and three injuries,” it added.

President Xi Jinping said that the blaze had caused “significant casualties” and that the lessons from it were “profoundly serious”, CCTV said. Xi called for “every effort to treat the injured, properly handle the aftermath for the deceased and provide support to their families, swiftly determine the cause of the fire, and pursue accountability in accordance with the law,” the report added.

Footage shared online and verified by AFP showed the inferno engulfing the two-storey restaurant and smoke billowing skyward. Other authenticated videos published on Douyin, China´s version of TikTok, showed paramedics wheeling one victim on a stretcher into an ambulance and several firefighters battling the flames with hoses.

Another video from the social media platform shot from above the scene showed more than a dozen fire engines parked outside the restaurant. One woman working at a nearby restaurant said she hadn´t been outside all day and only learnt of the incident when she read news articles about the fire.

“We weren´t aware of it and continued on normally,” she told AFP over the phone. The woman, who did not want to be identified, said she had “no idea” what caused the fire but said she heard sirens and there were still police outside of her restaurant.