Investigators yesterday blamed China’s state TV station CCTV for a huge blaze at its new headquarters that engulfed a hotel, saying fireworks it illegally set off to celebrate the Lunar New Year caused the fire.
One firefighter died after inhaling toxic fumes while battling the fire at the Mandarin Oriental’s nearly finished flagship hotel inside the CCTV complex that began on Monday night and raged for more than five hours, officials said.
Seven people were injured, but the Mandarin Oriental said no one was in the hotel when the fire started, indicating the death toll was unlikely to climb sharply.
The 159m tall hotel was just 200m from the futuristic CCTV tower that has quickly won fame as one of Beijing’s most stunning buildings and a striking symbol of China’s new-found global power.
Both buildings were designed by renowned Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas’ Office of Metropolitan Architecture and were due to open this year.
City government officials said the exterior of the hotel had been severely damaged, while the external walls of the 234m CCTV tower were burnt but its structure was not harmed.
In a public relations disaster for CCTV, authorities said the station defied police warnings and set off powerful fireworks in the complex.
“The owner caused the fire because it violated regulations and set off fireworks at the construction site,” said Zhu Xu, a spokesman for the Beijing government.
CCTV staff recorded the fireworks show, which involved pyrotechnics far stronger than the public is allowed to use, Xinhua news agency quoted Beijing Fire Control Bureau Luo Yuan as saying.
“Owners of the property ignored policemen’s warnings that such fireworks were not allowed,” Xinhua quoted Luo as saying.
He said the people who set off the fireworks were being detained for questioning.
CCTV apologized for the fire on its official Web site.
“We feel very hurt that the fire caused a big loss of national wealth,” it said. “We apologize to the nearby people for the traffic jams and inconvenience caused by the fire.”
However, CCTV did not show footage of the fire or mention it during its noon broadcast yesterday.
“It is clear only that the cause was firing fireworks against regulations. The detailed cause is still under investigation,” an official in CCTV’s foreign affairs department of CCTV, told The Associated Press yesterday.
The person refused to give her name because she did not have permission to speak to the media.
The CCTV complex, built at a cost of 5 billion yuan (US$710 million), was among many amazing developments to rise ahead of last year’s Beijing Olympics.
RALLYING CRY: Former US president Donald Trump has raised suspicions about why Chinese migrants are going to the US and advocacy groups worry about his rhetoric The US Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said that it sent 116 Chinese migrants from the US back home in the first “large charter flight” in five years. The flight, which happened over the weekend, comes as Chinese immigration has become the subject of intense political debate in the upcoming US presidential election. “We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. The department said it was working with China to “reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt
SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTE: The Philippines prefers to handle operations on its own, and would exhaust all possible options before asking for help, the military chief said The Philippines has turned down offers from the US to assist operations in the South China Sea, after a flare-up with China over missions to resupply Filipino troops on a contested shoal, its military chief said. Tensions in the disputed waterway have boiled over into violence in the past year, with a Filipino sailor losing a finger in the latest June 17 clash that Manila described as “intentional high-speed ramming” by the Chinese coast guard. The US, a treaty ally, has offered support, but Manila prefers to handle operations on its own, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief General Romeo Brawner told
Georgian student Elene Deisadze was browsing TikTok in 2022 when she stumbled across the profile of a girl, Anna Panchulidze, who looked exactly like her. Months later, after chatting and becoming friends, they both separately learned they were adopted, and last year decided to take a DNA test. It revealed they were not only related, but identical twins. “I had a happy childhood, but now my entire past felt like a deception,” said Anna, an English student at university. Far from an innocent case of separation at birth, the sisters are among tens of thousands of Georgian children who were
ELECTION JITTERS: After a call with the party’s leadership, a DNC member said they were being asked to ignore the party’s dire predicament after last week’s debate US President Joe Biden on Saturday attended a triple-header of campaign fundraisers, seeking to reassure high-dollar donors he can still win re-election in November despite a debate performance that sparked panic among many Democrats. Accompanying him at the fundraisers in New York and New Jersey was first lady Jill Biden, who has fiercely defended her 81-year-old husband amid calls for him to step aside. “Joe isn’t just the right person for the job — he’s the only person for the job,” she told one gathering, which featured actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick among the cohosts. The president is facing a wave