China Detains Building Chief in TV Complex Blaze

[Coventina]

Source: New York Times

BEIJING — Police have detained a construction chief of China Central Television, the government-controlled broadcast empire, in connection with a huge fire Monday that destroyed part of the agency’s spectacular new Beijing complex, the state media reported Thursday.

Authorities also picked up three other employees of the television company, known as CCTV, and eight employees of a firm hired by CCTV to put on an illegal fireworks show that has been blamed for the fire, Xinhua, the official news agency, said.

The blaze gutted a 520-foot futuristic skyscraper that included a hotel and theater, part of an unfinished $1.1 billion CCTV complex that has been cast as an architectural symbol of China’s rising stature. One person died and seven were injured.

The disaster, for which CCTV officials have publicly apologized, has been played down in the government-controlled media. Nonetheless, it has reopened a debate here about whether fireworks displays should be banned in major cities like Beijing. The skyscraper caught fire during the Lantern festival, the final night of China’s Lunar New Year celebration, when enormous fusillades of fireworks were launched over the city for hours.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/world/asia/13beijing.html?ref=world

[GodlessBiker]

1. They're all as good as dead.

[B3Nut]

4. Maybe they'll get to ride in that nifty death-van of theirs.

Mobile capital punishment. Now that's civilization!

:sarcasm:

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[AngryAmish]

2. Didn't they have sprinklers?

Or were they not working since it building was not finished?

[DainBramaged]

3. What was the skyscraper built out of, balsa wood?

Construction standards, not something that is the norm in China. I just do not understand how a concrete, steel and glass building catches fire.