Day After #cctvfire: The Rhetoric

Here, in no particular order, is a look at the rhetoric surrounding the #cctvfire — more precisely, the fire that burnt out the Television Culture Center, which was the “northern side building” facing The Pants, or the new CCTV Headquarters:

• Subway services on Line 10 were interrupted last night. Line 10 services did not only skip Jintai Xizhao, the closest station to the fire; all of Line 10 went out of action.

• Immediately following the fire, Xinhua sent this scary note to all mainland (PRC) media organizations:

All networks:

Regarding the “CCTV New North Side Building on Fire” report, all sites must use only the Xinhua news script. Do not post pictures, videos; do not report in depth; only post in Domestic (Chinese) news; close all posts and replies; do not put this as the “top topic”; do not place this in “Recommended Articles”.

• The talk of the day on Beijing streets was simple — the fire at the hotel late last night.

• Xinhua, oddly enough, ran a multi-part article on the fire early in the day (I got up at around 10:00, and this was pretty much one of the first sites I checked out). It seemed like that the censorship was gone.

• Last night, there was no attempt made whatsoever to mute the press or civilians. Police did not intervene when people snapped photos — even if cars were stopped halfway through the streets. They were only there (some in plain clothes) to get people across crossings — it seemed like they weren’t interested in harmonizing (censoring) coverage of the whole event.

• This very spooky picture (from a local / Chinese forum) made it onto the Web. No idea if it underwent a bit of Photoshopping or not. We can’t call this one fake, but it doesn’t immediately coax us that this was “real”.

• This made big news today on the Beijing Evening News:

Here’s a translation (more to come soon):

Fire In Nearby Television Culture Center Works Site in New CCTV Tower Site — Caused By Illegal Fireworks

Luo Yuan, the spokesman of the Beijing Municipal Fire Brigade, revealed this morning that causes for the fire last night at the Television Culture Center site have now initially been found out. Luo Yuan stated: “The fire was caused because workers inside the works site did not listen to police advising them against setting off fireworks in the site.”

As briefed, the building on fire is the Television Culture Center, which is split into a broadcast hall, a digitization room and the Mandarin Hotel, which are presently not in service and have not underwent fire brigade inspections. Fire brigade authorities investigations initially conclude that the fireworks that caused the fire was a Class A fireworks. Police were on hand to attempt to obstruct the fireworks from being set off, but attempts at obstruction failed.

A fire report was received by the fire brigade at 20:27. The Beijing 119 fire brigade instruction center quickly dispatched 27 fire brigade groups, 85 cars and 595 fire fighters to extinguish the fire. The Hongmiao fire brigade was the main responsible group and arrived first on the scene. The instructor, Zhang Jianyong, guided four fire fighters and entered the scene, and at the same time, looked for some security guards and the project manager trapped in the building.

In discovering the fire, fire fighters found the situation extremely complex; hence they went down from the 14th floor. At this time, smoke was all over the place, hampering visibility; movement was extremely encumbered. Upon arriving at the 8th floor, it was almost impossible to move. In the very end, three fire fighters reached the ground floor, but immediately lost contact with the outside world. Fire fighters which arrived subsequently immediately started rescue operations, and rescued fire fighters trapped in floors 1 to 8. Unfortunately, Zhang Jianyong died due to inhaling excess amounts of poisonous gas. During the rescue operations, 6 other fire fighters and one other works site personnel were also injured, apart from Zhang Jianyong.

As briefed by the fire brigade authorities, Zhang Jianyong, born February 26, 1979, was supposed to turn 30 this year. He became a firefighter in 1998 and was promoted in 2002. Prior to his death, his post was a deputy-post instructor. His wife presently works at a hospital. His parents live in Shenyang. This morning, both parents arrived in Beijing.

As briefed, the building on fire had 30 floors above ground and 30 floors underground, with a building area of 103,000 square meters. Investigations are still ongoing in the parts burnt. The fire caused serious damage to the outside of the building, with the western, southern, and eastern parts of the exterior burnt. Thanks to rescue efforts by the fire fighters, the fire did not spread to the northern exterior and did not damage the main structure.

Eyewitnesses stated that the fire first started from the upper parts of the building, which then spread quickly to the outside. Luo Yuan said that the fire was able to spread so quickly due to the material used in renovating the building. “This was a 30-storey building with a lot of wind on the top part of the building, thereby directly impacting the duration of the fire.” In addition, due to the fact that the building was as yet unfinished and had incomplete fire fighting devices, water guns proved to be ineffective even when used with a 98-meter raised ladder.

Right now, associated departments have already taken hold of fireworks which were not set off, and are continuing the investigation leading to the cause.