- Title: CHINA: Shanghai mourns victims of deadly apartment fire
- Date: 22nd November 2010
- Summary: VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING ON STREET FEET WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) BEIJING RESIDENT NING JIAYONG SAYING: "I think its a great shame. because we've had so many years of cooperation, and it's always been very friendly. I feel very shocked by the news." PEOPLE WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Mandarin) BEIJING RESIDENT YAN JUNJUN SAYING: "I think it (Kim's death) may have some
- Embargoed: 6th December 2010 22:29
- Keywords:
- Location: China, China
- Country: China
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVA2EZ48U7A05G31H9TMHPR1AE5N
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: More than ten thousand Shanghai residents converged at the site of a deadly apartment fire on Sunday (November 21) to mourn those who were killed in the disaster.
Mourners brought wreaths and white and yellow chrysanthemums, a traditional flower used for mourning, as they gathered at the street junction where the burnt apartment building still stands.
Sunday was the seventh day after the fire, an important day in China's traditional mourning process which lasts up to seven weeks.
Police and volunteers maintained order at the mourning site as crowds lined up to place flowers at wreaths at one of the entrances to the charred apartment building.
China's official Xinhua news agency reported on Friday (November 19) that police had detained four more suspects in connection with the fire that gutted the high-rise apartment in Shanghai Monday (November 15) killing 58 people.
Anxious to ease alarm among residents, local officials detained eight people Tuesday (November 16), a day after the fire swept through a 28-storey high-rise in China's commercial centre.
The fire, which took more than four hours to put out, was blamed on unlicensed welding.
Many relatives of the fire victims took part in the mourning as they burnt joss paper in front of wreaths and photographs of their deceased kin at the site.
They cried and hugged each other as they mourned and remembered their loved ones.
"After these few days, of course we feel so very sad and full of grief. We just cannot accept this fact because she was such a good person. It's not because she left this world that we are saying this, but she was so full of love and she loved her father and mother so much," said 63-year-old Chen Huiyang (pron: chen-hwee-yang), who lost her 38-year-old cousin Wang Fang in the fire.
Chen came with more than a dozen relatives, who are helping each other to cope with their loss.
"Of course, we will need time and help from other people. We need time to recover from this because they are all our kin in our family and we have been together in our lives. If you ask us, we are unable to walk out of these shadows so quickly," she added.
The swift steps to assign blame for the fire that swept up the 85-metre-high building showed how worried officials are to ease alarm among residents who complained about taking more than four hours to put out the fire.
Many residents of the gutted apartment block had also blamed firefighters who lacked a proper rescue plan and their lack of related rescue equipment for high-rises.
But one resident said investigators should look into the disaster objectively.
"I cannot really assess the situation because my thoughts were so messed up back then. At the scene of the fire, I felt that the firefighters were doing their best to rescue people. As to the technical aspects and the preparedness of their equipment, that is another matter. I feel that we should be looking at this disaster in an objective manner," said 52-year-old Ge Weidong (pron: ger-way-dong), who lost his mother in the fire.
Residents living in the area said as many as ten thousand people had been streaming to the site from early morning.
Students and volunteers helped give out flowers and directed people to the mourning site.
"Because today is the traditional first seventh day of mourning for the Chinese people, so many people came here to give their blessings for the deceased victims of the fire," said 20-year-old student Lu Mingxuan (pron: loo-ming-shuen).
China's rapid urban growth is throwing up vast numbers of new high-rise buildings, and while major fire disasters have been relatively rare compared with other developing countries, safety maintenance can be lacking.
Officials are hoping the public investigation would head off public disquiet about the blaze in Shanghai, a city with an urban population of about 13 million which has just finished hosting an expo intended to showcase it as a modern, global metropolis.
It is common to find fire exits blocked or locked in many Chinese buildings, ostensibly to stop thieves or because the space is being used for storage, and fire extinguishers are not widely available. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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