At least 18 people killed and 16 injured in a fire at a martial arts school in central China in the early hours of the morning. Most of the victims were boarding school students aged between seven and 16. The fire was extinguish and authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.
Moreover, 34 residents of the dormitory are victims and caught fire. Four of whom has seriously injured and taken to a local hospital. An unnamed doctor told media that they will do everything in their power to save them. A central manager of center in Henan province has also arrested.
The cause of the fire in center for Martial Arts in ZhenXing is still unclear. It described as a comprehensive martial arts training facility aimed at strengthening the body through morality and martial arts. The school recruits students for boarding schools throughout the year but provides no further details.
Martial Arts School is home of traditional Kung Fu
Province Henan is the birthplace of traditional Chinese martial arts and is home of many Kung Fu style institutions. The largest and renowned one is Shaolin Martial Arts School has hundreds of teachers and tens of thousands of students.
This incident comes at a sensitive time for China’s ruling Communist Party as they prepare for security ahead of the 100th anniversary. Social media users started demanding better fire safety standards online as the fire hashtag quickly received over 1.5 million views.
Fatal fires are common in China and safety regulations are frequently violating and enforcement is unstable. Whereas, in 2017 more than two dozen people died in two large fires in Beijing’s migrant district. A fire in a 28-story apartment building in Shanghai in 2010 killed 58 people.
In just one week of June, more than 30 workers have killed in two separate gas explosions at mines in Henan and Hubei.
