EIGHT people were killed in a fire at an ancient minority
village in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua news agency
reported today.
The blaze was detected in Sanjiang Dong Minority County about
2:50am on Wednesday when a resident of Maping Village found his
neighbor's house on fire, Xinhua said.
It was the second fire in the county this month after a fire
burned down 513 houses on November 2, according to a previous
Xinhua report.
All the victims in Wednesday's accident were said to be Maping
residents, the report added, without revealing the cause of the
fire.
The Sanjiang government has built temporary residences for those
who lost homes and also dispatched 250 kilograms of food and other
necessities to the area, the report said.
Sanjiang, with Dong minority making up 56 percent of its 340,000
residents, reports many fires as it is customary for Dong people to
make fires in wooden-made houses, according to Xinhua.
They prefer to connect their houses together on hillsides that
usually lack water resources, Xinhua said.
The county is in the cold mountainous area between Guangxi,
Hunan and Guizhou provinces. It reported 20 fires that killed four
people and injured eight in 2006, Xinhua said.
Last year's fires also cost Sanjiang, one of the 49 poorest
counties in Guangxi, a direct economic loss of 9.28 million yuan
(US$1.26 million), Xinhua added.
(Shanghai Daily, November 30, 2007)