Investigators pinned some of the blame for a Christmas night fire that killed 309 people on the Taiwanese management of a shopping center in the Chinese city of Luoyang which housed a doomed disco, state media said yesterday.
However, amid conflicting reports on whether any Taiwan citizens had been detained in connection with the blaze probe, a Chinese official said responsibility would likely be placed on local managers of the Taiwanese-owned firms.
The ancient former capital in central China bristled with police and they thwarted a planned yesterday protest by relatives of some of the blaze victims, a witness said.
Angry relatives staged a big rally on Thursday protesting that bungling and neglect by local officials lay behind the tragedy.
Protesters slammed emergency services for not responding quickly. Some accused local officials of a cover-up and others demanded compensation from the government and punishment for all those responsible.
The China Daily said investigators were blaming the tragedy on managers of a Taiwan-owned supermarket and department store in the six-storey building.
"The managers of the Dennis Supermarket and the Dongdu Department Store should take full responsibility for the disaster," the official newspaper quoted police firefighting expert Yang Zhijie as saying.
The management, which had sealed off their floors and possible escape routes with iron fences, "never gave a thought to people's safety," Yang was quoted as saying at a Thursday news conference.
Most of the victims were suffocated by smoke in the dance hall, which had only two emergency exits, one hidden behind the bar. There were no sprinklers or smoke alarms.
State media announced on Thursday the arrest of four welders. They said the welders started the fire which sent smoke billowing through a packed disco atop a department store, and then fled without raising the alarm.
Xinhua news agency quoted an investigation team as saying the welders, employed illegally by a Taiwan investor in the commercial center, were working in a basement of the six-storey building when sparks dropped onto furniture and cotton flannel.
One local newspaper Web site said 20 people arrested included six managers of a Taiwan company that partly owned the shopping center. A Luoyang official said 12 people -- four welders and eight others -- had been arrested in the case.
Taiwan media reports said several company officials who were citizens of the wealthy island were among those detained after the fire and would likely face charges of giving false testimony.
But an official of the Taiwan Affairs Office of Henan Province denied anyone from Taiwan was being held. Only local Chinese managers would be held accountable for safety lapses, he said.
Wang Rensheng, the Taiwan owner of the department store and supermarket and head of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in the provincial capital Zhengzhou, would not face charges, he said.
"Wang bears no direct responsibility for this fire," the official said. He said Wang was one of Henan's biggest investors.
"It is the local managerial staff who are at fault," the official said, adding that Wang sounded "very disturbed" by the tragedy when the two spoke by telephone yesterday.
The fire prompted Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) to vow severe punishment for those responsible and drew a statement of concern from President Jiang Zemin (江澤民).
The State Council, China's Cabinet, released an urgent circular on Thursday ordering the immediate closure of recreation centers and dance halls without safety equipment and inspections of hotels, shops, hospitals and schools, the agency reported.
It was not clear whether grieving relatives gathered in Luoyang would be assuaged by government explanations.
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