China lifts restrictions in Urumqi after deaths in building fire

The authorities of the capital of northwestern China, Xinjiang, Urumqiannounced this Saturday that they would begin lifting anti-COVID restrictions in parts of the city since August, following a controversy on social networks over the deaths of 10 people in a fire.

The fire started on the fifteenth floor of an apartment building on Thursday evening, and only about three hours later firefighters finished extinguishing the flames and evacuating nine injured people who had to be taken to hospital centers for treatment from smoke poisoning.

Numerous users expressed their outrage on the heavily censored social media in the Asian country, where a video was circulating that allegedly showed a fire truck pouring water on a building from afar because it could not approach due to the limited urbanization.

At a press conference, local authorities assured that the truck had difficulty reaching the building as the road leading to it was busy with parked cars, and indicated that the neighborhood was classified as a “low risk area” on the last day12. , so its inhabitants were able to leave it in stages, starting on the 20th.

According to the Hong Kong Daily South China Morning PostXinjiang National Health Commission risk area databases do not show that the urbanization ranking jianxiang -where the building was located- would be changed to “low risk area”.

In addition, authorities claimed that the fire spread because the fire door of the factory where it started was open and that some residents were unable to escape because they did not know the emergency exits.

According to the specialized portal What’s on Weibo, the label with which Internet users discussed the aforementioned press conference on the Weibo social network – the local equivalent of Twitter, censored in the country – gained more than 160 million visits in just 30 minutes. its beginning.

signs of indignation

The same portal ensures that another label hinting at a fire has received over 1500 million visits but has not appeared in the trending list, suggesting that it has been delisted by the platform’s censors.

Some of the messages posted by users not only express condolences for the deaths, but also show their resentment that these people have spent the last 100 days of their lives locked up in their homes, another example of the growing discontent among the Chinese population. . with severe policy restrictions Zero COVID.

In one of the comments, the event was compared to the death of 27 people in a car accident last September in the province. Guizhou (South) during transfer to the quarantine center at dawn: “History is repeating itself again, and ordinary people are paying the price.” (EFE)