Key points
- Elderly people have been shifted to nearby hospitals for treatment
- The cause of the blaze is under investigation
- Eight people were killed in a blaze in January
ISLAMABAD: Twenty people have died in a fire at a nursing home in northern China’s Hebei province, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua.
The fire broke out around 1300 GMT Tuesday night at the nursing home in Longhua County, roughly 180 kilometres northeast of the Chinese capital Beijing, Xinhua said.
As of 3:00 am Wednesday, it said, twenty people were confirmed dead.
Deadly fires
“Other elderly people in the nursing home have been transferred to nearby hospitals for further observation and treatment,” Xinhua said.
The cause of the blaze is under investigation, it maintained.
Deadly fires are relatively common in China due to lax building codes and an often slipshod approach to workplace safety, AFP reported.
In January, a fire at a vegetable market in Zhangjiakou city, northwest of Beijing, killed around eight people and wounded 15.
A month before that, nine people died in a fire at a construction site in eastern China’s Rongcheng city.
