Police have arrested 13 people involved with a crowded nightclub where fireworks sparked a blaze and stampede that killed at least 43 people and injured 88, state media and officials said.
The detainees included Wang Jing (王靜), the legal representative of the unlicensed King of the Dancers club in the Longgang district of the city of Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, the state-run Xinhua News Agency quoted police as saying yesterday.
Wang fled the scene when the fire broke out late on Saturday but turned himself in on Sunday after the general manager, vice general manager, safety officer, technician and performers were detained, the report said.
An initial police investigation showed that the blaze was triggered by fireworks ignited during the show in the club with a capacity of 380 people, on the third floor of a marketplace, Xinhua said.
Many partygoers were hurt in a stampede to escape down “a narrow aisle,” the agency quoted a club staff member as saying.
“I saw people rushing out ... and all the lights were off,” it quoted Yang Zhi (楊智) as saying.
Xinhua said Yang suffered burns to his neck.
Video footage aired on Sunday by Hong Kong’s ATV news showed the smoke-filled nightclub after the fire. Overturned tables, broken glass and shoes lost by partygoers littered the floor.
Guangdong Province Governor Huang Huahua (黃華華) blamed poor ventilation for the deaths.
“There was something wrong with the architectural design,” Huang told Hong Kong media after inspecting the nightclub.
“If there was a better ventilation system, there wouldn’t be so many deaths in the fire,” Huang said.
ATV said the nightclub had no windows and only one exit.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS