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Friday, 20 February 2009
China detains building chief in TV complex blaze
In a spate of arrests announced Thursday, Beijing officials put the blame for a Monday fire that destroyed part of the government’s spectacular new media complex squarely on the shoulders of the state-run television network.
BEIJING: In a spate of arrests announced Thursday, Beijing officials put the blame for a Monday fire that destroyed part of the government’s spectacular new media complex squarely on the shoulders of the state-run television network.
The police detained 12 people, including the chief of construction for the new headquarters of China Central Television, or CCTV, and eight employees of the firm the broadcaster hired to put on an illegal fireworks show that the authorities said ignited the blaze.
The fire gutted a nearly completed 520-foot-high futuristic hotel that was part of CCTV’s new $1.1 billion headquarters, sometimes described as an architectural symbol of China’s rising power. One firefighter died, and seven people were injured.
Many questions remain about the fire, including how fireworks could have ignited such an inferno and why the flames seemed to spread unchecked through a modern tower, designed by a world-renowned architect, that would presumably have been outfitted with state-of-the-art fire retardant systems.
The blaze, for which CCTV officials have publicly apologized, highlighted the clash between old and new in a city trying to blend ancient traditions with breathtaking development. Monday was the Lantern Festival, the final night of China’s Lunar New Year celebrations, when huge fusillades of fireworks blanketed the city for hours.
Perhaps nowhere else are people as crazy about firecrackers as in China, where gunpowder was first invented and more than four-fifths of the world’s fireworks are produced. Weddings, funerals and holidays are all commemorated with deafening booms, flashes of light and billowing clouds of black smoke.
But the devastating fire on Monday has added fuel to a long-running debate about whether fireworks should be allowed in the center of cities like Beijing, where the risk of injury, death or calamitous destruction of property is comparatively great.
In a letter to Beijing authorities published this week, Pan Shiyi, one of Beijing’s best-known developers, said that fireworks displays by citizens might be suitable for rural cultures, but not for a dense, modern city like Beijing.
“This is a huge lesson, as well as huge loss,” Pan wrote Wednesday in a blog. “In a city as big as Beijing, we really shouldn’t be allowed to set off fireworks.”
Citing safety, noise and pollution concerns, Beijing banned fireworks within the city center from 1993 to 2005, and nearly 300 other cities also instituted bans. The safety argument was compelling. From 1985 to 2005, China averaged 467 deaths a year from fireworks accidents. In contrast, in the United States, with nearly a quarter of China’s population, only 11 people died in fireworks accidents in 2006.
But the prohibitions provoked an angry reaction among urban residents, who complained that a 2,000-year-old tradition was dying out and that the Lunar Festival held no delight without fireworks. So after 12 years, Beijing and about 200 other cities relaxed the restrictions, allowing fireworks to be set off in downtown areas on selected holidays.
Days after the blaze, the charred hulk of the tower still attracted onlookers and created bottlenecks on the Third Ring Road, a major Beijing artery.
Zhang Xin, a 26-year-office worker who waited Wednesday on the corner of the CCTV complex for a ride, said setting off fireworks was a dangerous, increasingly outdated custom that should be prohibited downtown. “Every year, something like this happens,” he said.
Wu Huangqin, 20, said the government should organize its own fireworks displays and tighten controls over fireworks celebrations by citizens. “Everyone was so happy when we could set off fireworks again after the ban,” she said Wednesday. “If we stop completely, we’ll have no feeling of the holiday.”
According to news reports, the fireworks that ignited Monday’s blaze were not supposed to be available to the public, and CCTV lacked the government permit required to set them off.
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China detains building chief in TV complex blaze
By Sharon Lafraniere
13 February 2009
BEIJING: In a spate of arrests announced Thursday, Beijing officials put the blame for a Monday fire that destroyed part of the government’s spectacular new media complex squarely on the shoulders of the state-run television network.
The police detained 12 people, including the chief of construction for the new headquarters of China Central Television, or CCTV, and eight employees of the firm the broadcaster hired to put on an illegal fireworks show that the authorities said ignited the blaze.
The fire gutted a nearly completed 520-foot-high futuristic hotel that was part of CCTV’s new $1.1 billion headquarters, sometimes described as an architectural symbol of China’s rising power. One firefighter died, and seven people were injured.
Many questions remain about the fire, including how fireworks could have ignited such an inferno and why the flames seemed to spread unchecked through a modern tower, designed by a world-renowned architect, that would presumably have been outfitted with state-of-the-art fire retardant systems.
The blaze, for which CCTV officials have publicly apologized, highlighted the clash between old and new in a city trying to blend ancient traditions with breathtaking development. Monday was the Lantern Festival, the final night of China’s Lunar New Year celebrations, when huge fusillades of fireworks blanketed the city for hours.
Perhaps nowhere else are people as crazy about firecrackers as in China, where gunpowder was first invented and more than four-fifths of the world’s fireworks are produced. Weddings, funerals and holidays are all commemorated with deafening booms, flashes of light and billowing clouds of black smoke.
But the devastating fire on Monday has added fuel to a long-running debate about whether fireworks should be allowed in the center of cities like Beijing, where the risk of injury, death or calamitous destruction of property is comparatively great.
In a letter to Beijing authorities published this week, Pan Shiyi, one of Beijing’s best-known developers, said that fireworks displays by citizens might be suitable for rural cultures, but not for a dense, modern city like Beijing.
“This is a huge lesson, as well as huge loss,” Pan wrote Wednesday in a blog. “In a city as big as Beijing, we really shouldn’t be allowed to set off fireworks.”
Citing safety, noise and pollution concerns, Beijing banned fireworks within the city center from 1993 to 2005, and nearly 300 other cities also instituted bans. The safety argument was compelling. From 1985 to 2005, China averaged 467 deaths a year from fireworks accidents. In contrast, in the United States, with nearly a quarter of China’s population, only 11 people died in fireworks accidents in 2006.
But the prohibitions provoked an angry reaction among urban residents, who complained that a 2,000-year-old tradition was dying out and that the Lunar Festival held no delight without fireworks. So after 12 years, Beijing and about 200 other cities relaxed the restrictions, allowing fireworks to be set off in downtown areas on selected holidays.
Days after the blaze, the charred hulk of the tower still attracted onlookers and created bottlenecks on the Third Ring Road, a major Beijing artery.
Zhang Xin, a 26-year-office worker who waited Wednesday on the corner of the CCTV complex for a ride, said setting off fireworks was a dangerous, increasingly outdated custom that should be prohibited downtown. “Every year, something like this happens,” he said.
Wu Huangqin, 20, said the government should organize its own fireworks displays and tighten controls over fireworks celebrations by citizens. “Everyone was so happy when we could set off fireworks again after the ban,” she said Wednesday. “If we stop completely, we’ll have no feeling of the holiday.”
According to news reports, the fireworks that ignited Monday’s blaze were not supposed to be available to the public, and CCTV lacked the government permit required to set them off.
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