Sixteen people have been killed in a fire at a shopping centre in southwest China, state media reported on Thursday.
Smoke billows as a fire breaks out at a shopping centre in Zigong, Sichuan province, China (via Reuters)
The rescue operation ended at about 3 a.m. on Thursday (1900 GMT Wednesday), the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported, citing local fire and rescue services.
Video broadcast by state media CCTV on Wednesday night and shared on social media showed thick, black smoke pouring from the 14-storey building in Zigong city, Sichuan province.
The TV station said the fire broke out in the early evening at a shopping centre at the base of the building.
The fire was put out by rescue crews at about 8.20pm on Wednesday and around 30 people were rescued from the complex, CCTV showed.
Footage later provided to AFP by a drone operator showed fire engines and other emergency personnel continuing to block roads and spray extinguisher chemicals on charred buildings late into the night.
Xinhua said the death toll was 16 as of 3 a.m. Thursday and that no one was trapped in the building.
According to the station, Zigong city’s emergency services department was notified of the fire at around 6:10pm and immediately dispatched firefighters to extinguish the blaze.
Other images shared on social media, which AFP could not immediately verify, showed people gathering in front of the burning building.
The emergency medical service urged the public “not to believe or spread rumours” about the fire.
Zigong, about 1,900 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the capital, Beijing, is home to about 2.5 million people.
Fires are common in China due to lax safety standards and poor enforcement.
In January, dozens of people died in a fire at a shop in the central city of Xinyu, after Xinhua reported that it was caused by an “illegal” fire lit by an employee in the store’s basement.
That same month, a house fire killed at least 15 people.
The fire came just days after a late-night blaze broke out at a school in central China’s Henan province, killing 13 children sleeping in a dormitory.
Last June, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the northwest of the country killed 31 people and sparked a formal pledge for a nationwide campaign to promote workplace safety.
Then in April 2023, a fire broke out at a hospital in Beijing, killing 29 people and forcing desperate patients to jump out of windows to escape.
