Electrician held over hospital fire

An electrician has been detained for breaking operation rules to cause a fire that killed 39 people in a hospital in Northeast China's Jilin Province last Thursday, local police revealed over the weekend.

The electrician at the Central Hospital of Liaoyuan City, surnamed Zhang, was on duty that night, and found a power outage in the hospital. He then resumed power supply without checking the cause of the blackout, and left.

Hearing noises in the room 2 or 3 minutes later, Zhang returned and found smoke rising. He immediately ran out of the building to turn off the transformer, but when he got back, the fire had started to spread.

The deadly blaze started at 4:40 pm on Thursday and took firefighters 5 hours to put out, before which it had claimed 39 lives and injured 182.

The four-storey Central Hospital is the biggest hospital in Liaoyuan, about 120 kilometres southwest of Changchun, capital of Jilin Province. The hospital has 568 beds; there were 235 patients in the hospital when the fire broke out.

The police also detained the director of the hospital's logistics department for "violation of operating rules," according to the Dongji branch of the city's public security bureau.

The head of the hospital, Wang Shaowen, has also been under investigation, sources said.

What's more, the fault was some problem with the design of the hospital building, which made it difficult for fire engines to enter when the fire occurred, one patient said.

"The hospital is like a labyrinth it is easily to get lost in the hospital in daytime for us, let alone to find the direction in darkness," the patient said.

The rescue work was mostly completed on Friday, but more than 100 people were still looking for victims this weekend. Up to yesterday, no more victims had been found, according to Zhao Zhenqi, Party secretary of Liaoyuan City.

On Saturday morning, Zhao made a public apology for the accident.

"As a principal leader in the city, I feel deep regret for the fatal hospital fire, as I failed to exert myself to the utmost. I apologize to all the people in the city for the accident," he said.

The fire is the most disastrous one to affect the country's medical institutions since the founding of New China in 1949, according to Health Minister Gao Qiang, who made a visit to the hospitalized victims on Saturday.

Some 182 people were receiving treatment at seven other hospitals in the city, among which 89 were injured when jumping from the third or fourth floors during the fire.

Most of the 39 dead victims have been identified, and experts are stepping up work testing the remains of other victims.

Each family of the 39 victims will get 100,000 yuan (US$12,300) as the first batch of compensation. Those who were injured will also be compensated.

Source: China Daily