Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-25 21:01:18|Editor: Chengcheng

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HARBIN, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Nineteen people were killed in a hotel fire that broke out Saturday morning in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the local fire department has confirmed.

The deadly fire started at 4:36 a.m. Saturday at Beilong Hot Spring Leisure Hotel in Songbei District. Firemen evacuated more than 80 people and rescued 20 others trapped in the hotel. The fire was put out at 7:50 a.m.

Firemen found 18 bodies at the site and a person was declared dead at hospital after treatment failed. A total of 23 injured are being treated in local hospitals. The fire burnt an area of around 400 square meters.

The cause of the fire and identity of the victims is being investigated, according to the local government.

More than 100 fire fighters and 30 fire engines were sent out in the incident.

The Ministry of Emergency Management has urged all-out efforts in the rescue and investigation, and sent a work team to Harbin to guide the investigation. The municipal government is launching a city-wide safety inspection.

Khyungse, deputy director of the MEM's fire control bureau, said the incident and some other deadly fires in this month reflected problems such as the neglect of responsibility in some places.

The official demanded safety checks to prevent fires, particularly in hotels, hospitals, senior citizen homes, kindergartens, schools, shopping centers, entertainment venues and tourist sites.

Local fire departments should be fully prepared in this fire-prone period, Khyungse said, stressing higher alert and more patrols at night.</s>At least 18 people were killed and 19 injured in a fire that broke out at a hotel in China’s Harbin city on Saturday, reported Reuters. Authorities were investigating the cause of the blaze, the Harbin unit of China’s ruling Communist Party said on its Weibo account.

The fire broke out in the morning at the Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in Songbei District of the city, Xinhua quoted an unnamed official of the fire department as saying. It continued to burn for more than three hours before being doused at 7.50 am local time (5.20 am India time), reported The New York Times. The injured were sent to hospital for treatment, it said.

The fire in the four-storey building burned down an area of about 400 square metres, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The Ministry of Emergency Management sent a work team to Harbin to help out the rescue operations, reported Global Times.

The incident comes a day before an international marathon in Harbin, reported The New York Times. The hotel is located less than two kilometres from the marathon’s finish line.</s>At least 19 people have been killed in a fire at a resort hotel in China's northeast city of Harbin, according to local government officials.

Saturday's disaster added to a string of deadly blazes that have plagued China despite official efforts to improve public safety over the past two decades.

The fire broke out at the four-story Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in Harbin's Sun Island recreation area in the early morning and raged for just over three hours before it was put out by a force of 105 firefighters with 30 fire trucks, state television reported.

Firefighters found 16 people dead and three more died at a hospital, the city government and provincial fire department said on their social media accounts.

It said 18 people were injured and a total of 70 evacuated.

The cause was under investigation, the Xinhua News Agency said. Harbin, with about 5 million people, is the second-largest city in China's northeast, after Shenyang.

It is known for the Russian architecture of its inner city and as the site of a winter festival with sculptures made of ice blocks cut from the Songhua River.

The ruling Communist Party has tried to improve fire safety following deadly blazes at hotels, shopping malls and apartment buildings. But the country still suffers major fires.

In November, a fire blamed on faulty wiring at a Beijing apartment building killed 19 people.

A 2010 blaze at a Shanghai apartment tower killed at least 58 people. Authorities blamed sparks from a welder's torch.</s>A fire broke out on Saturday morning at a hotel in the Chinese city of Harbin, which is is the capital of Heilongjiang province, Xinhua reported. There were at least 18 dead reported after the blaze.

READ MORE: Nine People Dead in Fire at Waste Facility in Southern China — Reports

There were no immediate reports on what caused the fire. The rescue operation was still ongoing, according to the agency.

Harbin is largest city in the northeastern region of China a political, economic, scientific, cultural, and communications hub in Northeast China. The city is also well-known winter tourism and recreations.</s>Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A hotel fire broke out Saturday in China's Heilongjiang Province killed 19 people and injured 23 people

The cause of the fire, which happened at the Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in the provincial capital of Harbin, is under investigation. The New York Times reported Harbin will host a marathon attracting thousands to the city on Sunday.

The hotel is located a mile from the marathon's finish line near the north bank of the Songhua River. An announcement by Harbin police said the marathon would go ahead as scheduled on Sunday.

The Ministry of Emergency Management sent a work team to Harbin to guide the investigation and government officials are launching city-wide safety inspections to prevent fires in hotels, hospitals, senior citizen homes, schools, shopping centers, entertainment venues and tourist sites.

China's last major hotel fire in February 2017 in killed 10 people in Jiangxi Province. The fire began at the four-story HNA Platinum Mix Hotel in the province's capital Nanchang.

At the time of that deadly fire, construction workers were working on the second floor of the building, which is attached to a 24-story apartment building. Initial investigations found it was caused by the cutting of decoration materials.</s>Firefighters conduct rescue work in the ruins of a burnt-down hotel in Harbin.

Firefighters conduct rescue work in the ruins of a burnt-down hotel in Harbin.

AT LEAST 19 people died and another 23 were injured when a fire ripped through a hot springs hotel complex in northeastern China today, state media said.

The blaze began in the early hours at the hotel and spa in Harbin, capital of the Heilongjiang province, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

“An area of 400 square metres has been ravaged by the flames and 19 people have died,” the agency said, citing local authorities.

Blackened walls inside the hotel, which is part of a hot springs complex, could be seen in footage released by state broadcaster CCTV.

Images from the scene showed rooms littered with broken glass and twisted metal structures, with parts of the ceiling hanging down precariously in places.

The site of the fire accident at a hot spring hotel in Songbei District of Harbin Source: Xinhua News Agency/PA Images

The injured were suffering from burns or toxic smoke inhalation, CCTV said, indicating an investigation had been opened into the cause of the fire.

Xinhua said the hotel’s owner had been detained for questioning by police.

Deadly fires are common in China where fire security regulations are frequently neglected.

In April, 18 people were killed and five more injured in a fire at a karaoke establishment in the country’s south.

And in November, a fire left 19 people dead and eight injured at a boarding house in Beijing.

In 2015, another 38 people died following a fire at a retirement home in central Henan province.</s>This image taken from a video footage run by China's CCTV on Saturday, via AP Video, shows damaged exterior of Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in Harbin's Sun Island resort area, following a fire. More than a dozen of people were killed in a fire at a resort hotel in China's northeastern city of Harbin early Saturday, the local government said. | Photo Credit: AP

Police in northeastern China say they have detained the owner of a resort hotel where a fire killed 19 people and injured 23 others.

The public security bureau of the city of Harbin says on its official social media account it’s questioning the legal representative of the Beilong Hot Spring Leisure Hotel on suspicion of negligence leading to Saturday’s fire.

The disaster added to a string of deadly blazes that have plagued China despite official efforts to improve public safety over the past two decades.

State TV says the fire broke out at the four-story hotel in Harbin’s Sun Island recreation area at 4-36 a.m. and was extinguished at 7-50 a.m. by a force of 105 firefighters with 30 firetrucks.</s>BEIJING: A fire early on Saturday morning (Aug 25) at a hot springs hotel in the far northeastern Chinese city of Harbin killed 18 people, with 19 injured, authorities in the city said.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation, the Harbin propaganda department of China's ruling Communist Party said on its Twitter-like Weibo account.

Chinese media reports said the fire in the four-storey Beilong Hotspring Leisure Hotel at 4.36am. The blaze engulfed parts of the second, third and fourth floors, an area of around 400 sq m.

It took 107 firefighters three hours to extinguish the fire, reports said.

Beijing's municipal government launched a 40-day "special operation" targeting fire code and building safety violations after an apartment fire in the Chinese capital in November killed 19 people.</s>The owner of a spa hotel in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin where a fire killed 19 people and injured 23 on Saturday has been detained by police, as it was reported by state media that the building had failed at least five fire safety inspections in the past two years.

The Harbin public security bureau said via its official social media account that it was questioning the legal representative of the owner of Beilong Hot Spring hotel on suspicion of negligence regarding the fire, which started at about 4:30am on Saturday and was extinguished at 7:50am, state media reported.

The blaze killed 18 at the scene, while 24 people were taken to hospital, of whom one later died.

Formerly a private recreational facility of a state-owned bank, with complex, maze-like passageways, the 200-plus-room hotel had been a known fire safety risk for years, media reports of its alleged fire safety record suggested.

It was found unsafe by the city’s fire department in a fire hazard inspection in 2016, Thepaper.cn reported on Sunday, with no exit signs or fire extinguishers in some areas.

19 dead and 23 injured in hotel fire at Chinese resort

The hotel was ordered to suspend its operations until changes had been made, Thepaper reported, adding that it was unclear whether the hotel had complied.

According to , Harbin fire authorities had conducted six further inspections of the hotel since last December, four of which it failed to pass. By law, the authorities have the power to suspend a business in such circumstances.

The revelations came as hotel guests spoke of their narrow escapes from the burning building.

Luo, a 65-year-old tourist, told she had sustained severe spinal injuries as a result of jumping from a third-floor window, having woken up choking on the smoke.

She said she and her husband, who had been among a group of more than 90 from Beijing who were staying at the hotel, had opened their room door and found the corridor full of smoke. The only way out, she told the newspaper, was through the window, which was “quite high from the ground”.

“When I recall the scene, I still feel a shiver,” she was quoted as saying. “I heard many people have died. We are the lucky ones.”

The authorities said they were unable to name the 19 people who died. “Their identity remains to be checked,” said a spokesman for the city government in a press conference on Saturday.

An injured male tourist, also from the 90-strong tourist group, told Xinhua news agency of the chaos as rescue attempts were made. He had been among the first to get out, leaping from a window on the fourth floor, the hotel’s highest storey, without having had time to dress himself, he said.

Dramatic video shows dozens of Chinese rushing out of blazing bus right before it explodes

The Beilong hotel, located in the heart of the Sun Island resort area, a major tourism site to the north of Songhuajiang River, was formerly an exclusive resort owned and run by the China Construction Bank for its employees.

In 2015, during the anti-corruption campaign of recent years by the national government, the bank sold the property to a local businessman.

After Saturday’s fire, a past guest at the hotel, who stayed there earlier this month, added a review on Ctrip.com, the booking portal, in which they questioned its readiness for such an emergency.

“When the children were playing in the daytime, they ran about in the building and found that the passage is narrow and complicated, and it is easy to get lost,” they wrote.

“The most important thing is that there were no clear fire escape signs. ‘What should I do if there is a fire,’ I asked myself then. Unfortunately it turned out to be a prophecy.”</s>A fire early on Saturday morning at a hot springs hotel in the far northeastern Chinese city of Harbin killed 18 people, with 19 injured, authorities in the city said.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation, the Harbin propaganda department of China's ruling Communist Party said on its Twitter-like Weibo account.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the fire in the four-story building began at 4:36 a.m., burning an area of about 400 square meters before being extinguished after about three hours.

Footage aired by the state broadcaster showed rescue workers inside the burned-out building.

Beijing's municipal government launched a 40-day "special operation" targeting fire code and building safety violations after an apartment fire in the Chinese capital in November killed 19 people.
A hotel fire in Harbin, China, kills 19 people and injures 23 others. The fire broke out at the four-story Beilong Hot Spring Hotel in Harbin's Sun Island recreation area.