A fire early yesterday morning in a packed Internet cafe in Beijing's university district killed 24 people in what official media described as the Chinese capital's deadliest blaze in over half a century.
The fire broke out at around 2:45am at the Lanjisu Cyber Cafe in the Haidian district in Beijing's northwest, said the Xinhua News Agency and an official reached by telephone at the Beijing fire department headquarters.
Twenty of the victims died on the scene and four others died after being rushed to hospital, Xinhua said. Another 13 people injured in the blaze were being treated in hospital, Xinhua said. Most were students, it said.
Haidian is home to the prestigious Beijing and Tsinghua Universities and has a large student population.
The fire's cause was under investigation, according to Xinhua and the fire official, who wouldn't give his name.
Xinhua said the front door to the cafe was locked at the time of the fire and there were no other exits. Windows were covered in iron burglar bars, further preventing escape.
A neighbor said he was awakened by people screaming and saw smoke pouring from windows of the cafe, which was located on the second floor of a two-story cement building.
"There were people shouting, `Help me, help me,'" said the man, who gave just his surname, Liu.
Neighbors later pried the bars off one window and dragged out several victims, who appeared to be already dead, Liu said.
Firefighters took just five min-utes to extinguish the fire, which seemed to be concentrated near the front of the cafe, he said. The fire official and Xinhua said the blaze was put out by 3:30am.
The fire was the deadliest in Beijing since the founding of the PRC in 1949, Xinhua said.
Police have been ordered to arrest the unidentified owner of the cafe, which had been open less than a month and had no license, Xinhua said. The building, which housed a small supermarket on its first floor, was owned by a government petroleum research institute located nearby, it said.
Liu said the cafe had operated 24 hours a day and drew large numbers of students with cheaper rates for going online late at night. Liu and other witnesses said the cafe had room for more than 40 customers.
Yesterday morning, the surrounding area along a tree lined street had been cordoned off and police could be seen inside filming with a video camera and turning over debris. Burn marks could be seen around windows whose glass had been broken and a striped blanket was hanging from one window.
Beijing Mayor Liu Qi (
Those cafes that meet safety and other standards will be allowed to reapply for licenses while those found lacking will be closed and their property confiscated, it quoted him saying.
Internet cafes, many open 24 hours, are immensely popular in China, which says it has 33.7 million Internet users but where many families can't afford to buy a computer. The biggest cafes, especially near universities, have hundreds of terminals.
Authorities have ordered several rounds of inspections and reorganizations of the sector in hopes of reining in growth and cracking down on illegal gambling and pornography.
However, regulation remains lax and just 200 of Beijing's Internet cafes are properly licensed, Xinhua said.
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