Five people, including a Russian guest, were confirmed dead in a
hotel fire on Saturday evening in a city of the Korean Autonomous
Prefecture of Yanbian,
Jilin Province, according to local government on Sunday.
The blaze, which broke out at around 7:40 PM in the Xinqiao
Hotel in Yanji, a city in Yanbian, killed three employees of a
Chinese power company, a man who works in Beijing and a Russia
guest, said Sui Qingjiang, an official of the prefecture. All five
victims were male said the official who did not reveal their names.
.
Their bodies were found after the fire was extinguished at
around midnight. Investigators said one of the dead was tall and
fair-skinned and suspected he was a Russian, Sui said.
The hotel authorities later confirmed he was a Russian who had
come to Yanji for medical treatment. He gave a Chinese name when he
checked in.
More than 40 guests were resident in the hotel when the fire
broke out with the majority of them being safely evacuated. A
handful people who had remained behind including some hotel
employees escaped by jumping off the building.
Two men were also injured during the incident. One of them is
receiving medical treatment to a wrist which was badly injured
after he jumped from a sixth floor window. The other man has left
the hospital.
The cause of the fire is still being investigated. Some
witnesses said a neon light billboard at the entrance of the hotel
could have been the cause as it had earlier been damaged by high
winds.
Twenty-six fire trucks and 136 firemen joined the rescue
operation but the seven-story hotel building was completely
destroyed by the time the flames were put out. Four cars parked
near the hotel were also destroyed in the blaze. The fire also
destroyed four cars parked near the hotel.
"Thank heavens the fire engines came quickly,” said a citizen,
surnamed Cui, who runs a drugstore across the street. "The fire
could have spread to other buildings."
Located on a busy downtown street, Xinqiao Hotel was a landmark
in Yanji. The city is adjacent to the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea and also close to Russia. Over half of the 380,000
residents in the city are Korean.
(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2006)
