A blast ripped through a karaoke parlor in northeast China, killing 25 people and injuring 33 others, state media reported yesterday, the latest tragedy in a country hit by poor safety standards and negligence.
Xinhua news agency did not give a cause for the Wednesday night blast in Tianshifu Township in Liaoning Province.
It had earlier put the death toll at five, but said 25 bodies were found when rescuers had finished clearing away debris.
Xinhua said the explosion caused the two-story building to collapse into a heap of reinforcing steel and concrete that also buried several cars.
It said the dead included the parlor's owner.
An official with the Liaoning provincial press office, who gave only his surname, Li, confirmed the blast took place.
Also on Wednesday, a theater manager in Hunan Province died as he evacuated his building during a fire. Xinhua said it was the only confirmed death in the incident, and happened while the manager helped more than 100 people, including many children, escape the fire.
The exact cause of his death was not known, Xinhua said.
China has suffered a series of blasts, fires and accidents in shopping malls, cinemas and other public places despite repeated government promises to improve safety. Many are blamed on lax safety procedures and negligence.
In 2005, a fire in an illegally run bar in the southern city of Zhongshan killed 26 people. Local officials said that the bar lacked fire extinguishers, and that its emergency exit was too narrow.
In the country's worst recent nightclub disaster, a fire blamed on a welding accident tore through a disco in the central city of Luoyang in December 2000, killing 309 people.
Local reports at the time said the building had failed 18 safety checks in two years.
Investigators blamed locked emergency exits for the large number of casualties.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
A Croatian town has come up with a novel solution to solve the issue of working parents when there are no public childcare spaces available: pay grandparents to do it. Samobor, near the capital, Zagreb, has become the first in the country to run a “Grandmother-Grandfather Service,” which pays 360 euros (US$400) a month per child. The scheme allows grandparents to top up their pension, but the authorities also hope it will boost family ties and tackle social isolation as the population ages. “The benefits are multiple,” Samobor Mayor Petra Skrobot told reporters. “Pensions are rather low and for parents it is sometimes
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS