At least 10 people died when a hospital in north-east China’s Jilin province caught fire on Thursday, forcing desperate people to jump from the building to escape the flames, state media and officials reported.
The fire started at the City Centre hospital, Liaoyuan city’s largest, at about 4.30pm local time, the Xinhua news agency said on its website.
”We’ve got the fire under control,” a Liaoyuan firefighter said by telephone nearly five hours after the blaze erupted.
Xinhua confirmed the main fire had been put out and that rescue teams working their way through the rubble had found an unspecified number of corpses.
The injured were taken to other, smaller hospitals in the city, but some were so badly injured they could not be saved, according to Xinhua.
”I don’t know how many people have been injured, but the situation is pretty serious,” said an official at the Liaoyuan Number Two People’s hospital, one of those treating the injured.
Xinhua said 10 fire engines and a large number of ambulances were at the scene, and more fire engines had been dispatched from the provincial capital, Changchun, and from nearby Yitong county. — Sapa-AFP