DgcityA fire swept through a mixed-use high-rise in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, on Sunday evening, killing 14 people and injuring dozens in one of the deadliest building fires in China this year.
The blaze broke out at the Haosheng International Apartment complex in Yingze district at about 4:59 p.m., apparently starting around the fourth floor of a nine-story annex and spreading to its eighth and ninth floors, where a hotel operates. The complex also includes a 40-story residential tower, and smoke from the annex drifted across it as firefighters worked from crane platforms. Open flames were out by 7 p.m. and rescue work ended at 8:30 p.m.
Sixty people were rescued or evacuated, and 38 were taken to hospital. Five deaths were confirmed on Sunday night, with the toll rising to 14 by Monday morning. By Monday afternoon 25 people remained hospitalized, nine of them in critical condition. Property management staff have been placed under control measures and the cause remains under investigation.
The building concentrated the kinds of uses that make high-rise fires dangerous: apartments, a hotel, restaurants and children’s training centers stacked on the same lower floors, which were crowded at a weekend dinner hour. Mixed-use blocks of this kind are common in Chinese city centers and often combine separate exits, tenants and renovation histories.
It was also the second fatal high-rise fire in Taiyuan this year, after a March blaze in a building six kilometers away killed three. City officials promised a sweeping inspection campaign, and questions over blocked exits, renovation work and enforcement of existing rules are expected to form the core of the investigation.
High-rise safety has been a recurring worry across Chinese cities, where residential towers routinely exceed 30 stories and many were built in a single decade of rapid urban growth. Fatal fires in recent years have led to repeated campaigns over blocked stairwells, electric bikes charged indoors and cladding that can help flames spread.
Mixed-use blocks pose a particular problem because a single structure may house apartments, short-term rentals, restaurants and training centers under different managers. Residents may know one set of exits while hotel guests rely on another, and renovation work on commercial floors can introduce wiring and materials that never pass a residential review.
For families of the victims, the coming weeks will center on whether the investigation produces individual accountability rather than another generic safety pledge. The control measures placed on property managers suggest authorities are already examining whether staff failed to maintain alarms, exits or evacuation procedures before the fire broke out.
