Chinese Fire Blamed on Short Circuit, Flammable Curtains

A tragic fire that killed at least 300 schoolchildren and teachers in a movie theater in remote northwestern China was caused when sparks from an electrical short circuit ignited flammable stage curtains and quickly spread into the crowded hall, officials here said Friday.

In the wake of the tragedy, the State Council issued an emergency circular ordering local governments to inspect dance halls, cinemas, theaters, restaurants, stores and other public places for fire safety. Although China has fire code standards on the books, they are inconsistently enforced.

“The causes of such fires must be thoroughly investigated and the culprits brought to justice,” said the emergency circular, reproduced on the front pages of most newspapers today.

A spokesman for the State Council, the Chinese central governing body, said most of the victims of the Thursday night fire in the Friendship Hall cinema in Karamay, an oil boom town in Xinjiang region, died of burns and suffocation.

According to several reports, several emergency exits and windows in the Karamay movie theater were locked. Some of the dead were reportedly found clumped behind one of the blocked exits.

More than 100 people were seriously injured and undergoing treatment at the Karamay Crude Oil General Hospital.

It was China’s second major fire disaster in two weeks. A Nov. 27 fire at a dance hall in Liaoning province claimed 233 lives, most of them students. The two fires were the most serious to hit China since 1979, when another movie theater fire in Xinjiang region killed more than 600 people.

The news agency Reuters reported that most of the children killed were honors students chosen by their schools to participate in a special cultural program staged for a visiting education evaluation team. Karamay, a city of 200,000 residents, most of whom work in the nearby oil fields, has 17 primary and middle schools.

“We only have a certain number of schools, and they all sent their best students,” a teacher at the No. 2 Secondary School said in a telephone interview. “So in every corner of town there are families who have lost children.”

According to the official New China News Agency, senior leaders of the provincial government, as well as Communist Party cadres, traveled to Karamay, 180 miles northeast of Urumqi in the Junggar Basin, to coordinate relief efforts.

“An initial investigation showed that the fire may have been caused by a short circuit in the wiring,” the news agency reported. “The victims included teachers and pupils from the city. Most were primary school students. All of the injured have been taken to local hospitals.”

So far this year more than 1,500 people have died in 30,000 reported fires in China.