Twenty-nine people were killed after Beijing’s deadliest fire in two decades broke out at a hospital earlier this week, with a prolonged silence in state media about the incident fueling public outrage.
The majority of those killed were inpatients at Changfeng Hospital in the southwest part of Beijing, where the fire broke out at around 1 p.m. Tuesday, officials said at a news briefing the following day.
Twenty-six inpatients died in the fire with an average age of 71. It also claimed the lives of a nurse, a health care worker and a patient's family member. As of Wednesday, 39 people who had been injured in the blaze were hospitalized, with 18 in serious condition and three in critical condition, officials said.
A preliminary investigation has found that the fire started when sparks caused by renovation work ignited flammable paint.
Twelve people have been detained in connection with the blaze, including the hospital’s director and deputy director as well as the head of a construction company that was overseeing the work at the hospital, a public security official said.
The incident marks the deadliest fire in the Chinese capital in two decades, surpassing the toll from a 2002 blaze at an internet cafe in the Haidian district, which killed 25 people.
One video that was circulating on Chinese social media before being censored on Tuesday showed black smoke rising from the building, with at least one person using tied-together bed sheets to climb down a wall onto a lower terrace.
While officials held a news briefing to clarify details, public anger erupted over the initial silence by authorities and the media.
The fire broke out at around midday on Tuesday, but the public was kept in the dark for several hours, with Beijing residents complaining online that they were unaware of the incident happening in their city.
Beijing Daily, the official newspaper in the capital, published a short announcement about the fire at 8:43 p.m. — almost eight hours after emergency crews responded to a call for help and over five hours after the rescue operation was over.
After the announcement was issued on Tuesday night, domestic media began reporting on the fire, without going beyond what was said in the official statement.
Confronting the information blackout, internet users openly expressed their frustrations. They also questioned why the topic was not trending on social media sites in China on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
“We have Weibo, WeChat, Douyin and Kuashou. The internet and social media have invaded every aspect of our lives, but we are deaf, dumb and blind when it comes to knowing about the incident,” one user wrote on WeChat, pointing out that the wide use of social media and short video platforms in China still prevents important information from spreading.
“Twenty-one people are dead from the incident, but all we have got is this terrifying silence,” the user wrote, referring to the initial death toll published on Tuesday night.
“The fire erupted at around 1 p.m., but not a single news organization reported it as breaking news until the official statement came out,” said a post on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter. “The media now has essentially evolved into copy machines for standardized press releases.”
Family members of inpatients at the hospital were among those kept out of the loop, leaving them scrambling to get in contact with their loved ones. They told local media they only learned the hospital was on fire after seeing news reports, adding that they called the hospital to find out what happened but no one answered the phone.
One relative told local media that hospital officials were unable to give the identities of individuals who had been injured or killed, even after eight hours.
“For the past seven or eight hours, I did not even receive a phone call (from the hospital)," one was quoted as saying.
“Just tell me whether the patient is dead or alive," a relative told China Youth Daily. "How can a person just disappear into thin air?”
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