Photo: Sina Weibo

After a tragic fire accident in a building basement in Xinyu city of East China's Jiangxi Province killed 39, local authorities mandated that all off-campus training institutions suspend their training activities after an investigation found that some vocational college students attending an educational consulting training session were unfortunately among the casualties, officials said on Thursday. 

The fire broke out in the building basement of a shopping area in the city's Yushui district on Wednesday afternoon was followed by a preliminary investigation which revealed that the fire was caused by violation of regulations in construction work. Twelve individuals responsible for the incident were detained by local authorities for undertaking investigations of the public security organ.

Following the accident, the city's fire brigade dispatched responders from 10 fire stations, 20 fire trucks, and 118 rescue personnel to the scene. By 6:20 pm on Wednesday, a total of 48 individuals were rescued, of which 39 were pronounced dead and nine were sent for medical treatment.

The blaze was extinguished by 6:50 pm on Wednesday after repeated searches and follow up at the scene, it was confirmed by 8:10 pm that there were no trapped individuals inside the building. By 8:50 pm, the rescue forces at the scene began to withdraw successively, Gong Junhui, chief of the fire brigade, told a press conference on Thursday morning.

An owner of a store located less than 100 meters from the incident said that the shop on fire was situated on the basement floor of the building which was street facing. It was still under renovation, not yet open for business. The ground floor of this building houses a supermarket, while upstairs, there is a hotel and a training institution. 

According to eyewitnesses, after the fire broke out, several people were seen jumping from the second-floor windows onto the mats placed below, where police officers got them one after another.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the fire started in the basement of the building, which was undergoing renovation work to install a cold storage facility. The fire was caused by construction workers carrying out unauthorized hot work. 

Thick smoke spread through the stairwell to the second floor, the home of a training center called Boyi Education Consultancy and a hotel. The individuals trapped were mainly students attending educational consultancy training sessions and guests staying at the hotel.

The fire made headlines less than a week when a fire at a local school dormitory in city of Nanyang, Central China's Henan Province, claimed 13 lives and injured one.

The majority of those trapped in the fire in Xinyu were students attending a "college-to-university" training program and guests staying at the hotel, according to the Xinhua News Agency. 

The Boyi training center housed several classrooms of varying sizes, conducting teaching for different specializations. This particular class for the college advancement program had over 60 students, the China Youth Daily reported on Thursday. 

During the fire, the students were in the largest classroom, which was used for general subjects like English. This classroom had two exits to the outside. One was concealed behind the classroom, behind a curtain, with a small window that "was never opened," and the curtains were never drawn, according to the media report. 

A student with pseudonym Wang Li told China Youth Daily that they only discovered the existence of this window after the fire, as his classmate He Qiujie (also a pseudonym) mentioned he once tried to open it, but the edges of the window were "sealed with tape."

The other exit was a narrow aluminum door next to the podium, allowing only one person to pass at a time. The door was usually kept closed during classes, those students told China Youth Daily. "If a student went out to use the restroom, they would usually close the door behind them," He was quoted as saying in the report. 

Xinyu mayor bowed in apology during a press conference on Thursday morning on the fire accident. Local authorities pledged full cooperation with the State Council's investigation team in conducting the accident inquiry. Those found negligent or responsible will be held strictly accountable according to the law and regulations, according to the press conference.

The most direct cause of the accident is the unauthorized hot work carried out at the cold storage facility where there are many flammable insulation materials, thus a lesson must be drawn from the accident that operators of hot work at construction site should be strictly trained and qualified before overseeing similar operations, Wang Hongwei, a professor from the Renmin University of China's school of public administration and policy, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Besides, the flammable items used at the cold storage facility burn particularly quickly and release lots of toxic gases, which can cause complicated situation in a densely populated construction complex, like the building which situates the training center and the hotel, Wang said. 

Last but not the least, constructions with cold storage facilities should have evacuation passages and the public should strengthen their awareness and capabilities of evacuation in case of emergencies, Wang added. 

Wang also suggested that densely populated training centers and boarding schools should be strictly supervised by relevant authorities involved such as the education and firefighting departments over their operation qualification and fire management. A professional third party of fire risk hazards screening can be commissioned to carry out the fire prevention work. Besides, the fire liability insurance of some insurance companies can also be introduced, Wang said.