Authorities in the Chinese city of Urumqi in Xinjiang province have come out against claims by some residents to deny that coronavirus restrictions somehow hindered a residential building fire that claimed the lives of at least 10 residents on Friday.
After the event was confirmed, the city authorities announced that they would launch an investigation into what happened, and now they have advanced that in the first conclusions obtained it can be assured that no doors or floors were found closed with wire or blockades that prevented the doors from opening.
According to the person in charge of the rescue operation, some of the affected residents did not have sufficient «self-protection and rescue awareness», and has pointed out that these people did not take effective measures to try to extinguish the flames or flee.
At least ten people died and nine others were injured when a fire broke out in a block of buildings in the city of Urumqi, in the northwest of Xinjiang province.
Xinjiang is in a 100-day lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus after a new outbreak was detected in China. Some residents have complained that mobility restrictions have hampered rescue efforts.
According to DPA reports, some residents of the burning building were reportedly trapped because the doors were locked to prevent them from going outside, while other citizens did not even go inside for fear of violating the restrictions.
The Urumqi Police have acted quickly to quell any such allegations and, in addition to denying them, have taken action against those who spread such information. A 24-year-old woman faces a ten-day detention for spreading this information, which has been deemed false by the authorities.
The Asian giant as a whole is experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases, reaching the highest number of infections since the start of the pandemic. Nearly 35,000 new cases were reported in Beijing alone on Saturday.
China, which so far has not reported large numbers of infections as has been the case in most other countries, continues to cling to a restrictive policy called ‘COVID Zero’, which calls for the closure of entire residential complexes.
These measures, which the Chinese political leadership reaffirmed just over a week ago, have caused unease among the population and aroused doubts in part of the international community.
