43 dead in China nightclub blaze

A FIRE and subsequent stampede at a club in southern China killed 43 people and left 88 injured in the latest incident highlighting China’s abysmal fire safety record.

Witnesses and state media reports said the blaze late on Saturday at the Dance King nightclub in the city of Shenzhen, near the border with Hong Kong, was caused by a fireworks stunt that went wrong.

Hundreds of people crammed into the club, then were forced to try to escape the venue through insufficient exits, triggering a stampede.

“The performer was trying to shoot off some fireworks. He was aiming at the ceiling but a piece of cloth caught fire,” witness Liu Caihong, 31, told AFP. “Everybody started running out.”

Liu, who had numerous cuts on her body, said she still had no news of her younger brother and 18 friends who attended the performance with her on the third floor of the club.

Twelve people have been detained over the fire, Xinhua news agency said, but it gave no information on possible charges.

Fu Maoxia, 56, from Sichuan province, went to the club with his wife. They became separated and she died in the blaze.

“We were lucky enough to have escaped the Sichuan earthquake, but not lucky enough to escape this,” Fu said, while roaming the halls of a nearby hospital searching for his wife’s remains.

“The building is definitely substandard. The doors are too small and everybody was rushing out. People were stepping on each other,” he said.

Dozens of police officers had cordoned off the scene. Neon lights on the club’s facade had fallen down, while windows in adjacent buildings had been shattered.

Of those injured, 59 had been hospitalised, none seriously.

Apparently fearing an outburst of public anger over the fire, Guangdong province Communist Party Secretary Wang Yang ordered that victims’ families be “appeased” and “social stability” maintained.

At a local government office, crowds of people gathered seeking news of missing family members.

Grief-stricken relatives would burst out in screams after being told their loved ones were among the dead.

Deadly fires are common in China due to the routine flouting or ignorance of fire measures.