A restaurant fire in northeastern China killed 22 people and injured three on Tuesday, Beijing’s state media said, with footage posted online showing fierce flames engulfing the building.
The blaze erupted at lunchtime in Liaoyang City, about 580 kilometres (360 miles) northeast of the capital Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
“The incident has resulted in 22 deaths and three injuries,” it added.
Footage shared online and verified by AFP showed the inferno engulfing the two-storey restaurant and smoke billowing skyward.
Other authenticated videos published on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, showed paramedics wheeling one victim on a stretcher into an ambulance and several firefighters battling the flames with hoses.
Another video from the social media platform shot from above the scene showed more than a dozen fire engines parked outside the restaurant.
The operator of the restaurant was taken into police custody, state news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday evening.
The report added that 22 firefighting vehicles and 85 firefighters had been dispatched to distinguish the blaze.
Rescue efforts have now concluded, Xinhua said, adding that all injured victims were in “stable condition”.
“The cause of the fire is currently under investigation,” it added.
President Xi Jinping called for “every effort to treat the injured, properly handle the aftermath for the deceased and provide support to their families, swiftly determine the cause of the fire, and pursue accountability in accordance with the law,” according to CCTV.
‘Very tragic’
One woman working at a nearby restaurant said she hadn’t been outside all day and only learnt of the incident when she read news articles about the fire.
“We weren’t aware of it and continued on normally,” she told AFP over the phone.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, said she had “no idea” what caused the fire but said she heard sirens and there were still police outside of her restaurant.
“It definitely was very tragic,” she added.
Deadly fires are relatively common in China due to lax building codes and an often slipshod approach to workplace safety.
The country has seen a spate of such deadly incidents in recent months.
This month, 20 people died in a fire at a nursing home in northern China’s Hebei province.
And in January, a blaze at a vegetable market in Zhangjiakou city, northwest of Beijing, killed eight people and injured 15.
A month before that, nine people died in a fire at a construction site in eastern China’s Rongcheng city.
