BEIJING (Reuters) – An apartment fire on Thursday in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang killed 10 people and injured nine, state broadcaster CCTV reported, saying an electric socket extension was the cause.
The fire started at 7:49 p.m. (1149 GMT) Thursday night on the 15th floor of a high-rise building in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, then spread to higher floors, CCTV said.
China’s vast Xinjiang region has been under sweeping COVID-19 prevention measures, though CCTV said the apartment building was in a compound categorized as low-risk, a term used for areas without COVID-19 cases. Residents were able to go downstairs, state media said.
The nine injured suffered lung injures and remain stable, CCTV said. This is the second deadly fire in China in the past few days. A factory fire in the central Chinese city of Anyang killed 38 this week.
(Reporting by Albee Zhang and Bernard Orr. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
