File image of a police crime scene.
According to official media reports, a warehouse fire in northeastern China on Saturday caused at least 14 deaths and 12 serious injuries.
According to the official Xinhua News Agency, a logistics warehouse in Changchun, the capital of Jilin Province, caught fire on Saturday afternoon, and rescue work is still ongoing.
Pictures released by the agency showed firefighters using ladders and cranes outside the burnt glass-walled building.
“The cause of the incident is under investigation,” Xinhua News Agency said.
Fatal fires are not uncommon in China, and poor enforcement of building codes and rampant unauthorized construction make it difficult for people to escape burning buildings.
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In June, a fire broke out in a martial arts boarding school in Henan Province in central China, killing 18 people, most of whom were students. Official media later reported that the school building had not completed a mandatory fire safety audit.
The school fire caused an uproar online, with Chinese social media users calling for higher fire safety standards.
In 2017, two fires in the residential areas of migrant workers in Beijing caused more than two dozen deaths.
For the first time, 19 people were killed in November of that year, prompting the authorities to start demolishing unsafe buildings in the capital, driving hundreds of thousands of residents out of their homes during the mid-winter.
In 2010, a fire swept through a 28-story residential area in Shanghai, killing 58 people.
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