Fire at Chinese hospital kills 33

BEIJING - A fire at the largest hospital in the northeastern Chinese city of Liaoyuan has killed at least 33 people, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Xinhua quoted a provincial government official as saying rescuers found 19 bodies at the scene and 14 other people died after they were transferred to other hospitals for treatment.

It said all the victims were patients at Liaoyuan's City Central Hospital.

The cause of the blaze and the extent of the damage were not immediately known.

Liaoyuan is about 120 km southwest of Changchun, capital of Jilin Province.

Last month, an explosion at a chemical plant in Jilin spilled 100 tonnes of cancer-causing benzene compounds into the Songhua river and forced nearby Harbin city to suspend water supplies for four days.

A police official told Reuters that provincial leaders rushed to the scene of the hospital fire. He said its cause was under investigation.

A witness said scores of patients were evacuated.

Some people were seen jumping from burning buildings, Xinhua quoted witnesses as saying.

Fire engines from Changchun and nearby Yitong county were mobilised to help fight the fire, it said without giving further details.

In the first 11 months of this year, 222,000 fires broke out in China, down 5.4 per cent from the same period last year, state media quoted an official of the Ministry of Public Security as saying.

In the same period, a total of 2,048 people were killed and 2,080 injured in blazes between, down 11.3 per cent and 26 per cent respectively, the official was quoted as saying. Economic losses fell 10.2 per cent to 1.23 billion yuan ($220 million).

- REUTERS