FIRE hazards are worrying in some of Shenzhen s old housing estates after a store in a 23-year-old residential estate caught fire in Luohu District on Friday. There were no casualties.
It took firefighters two hours to put out the fire in the Youyao Estate Brokerage office on the first floor of a building in the Tianyuan residential estate. Firefighters had to train hoses on the blaze from a distance because the lane to the fire was too narrow for firefighting vehicles to pass, the Daily Sunshine reported Saturday. The office was destroyed.
Neighborhood residents said they were deeply worried about how they could escape in the event of fire as there was no firefigthing access to their buildings, the report said.
Besides, I doubt the firefighting facitlies in my building still work because they have become rusty, a woman identified as Cheng said.
Tianyan residential estate was built in 1987. The property management office said it had upgraded some of the firefighting equipment last year but some had been stolen.
The situation in Shenbao Housing Estate and Jinma Housing Estate next to Tianyuan were just as worrying because firefighting equipment was ineffective due to lack of maintenance or aging.
A security guard at Shenbao, surnamed Li, said each year the city firefighting authorities conducted at least one inspection of fire prevention measures in the estate and notify subdistrict agencies of fire hazards.
But ... the subdistrict never repaired [the equipment], he said.
A fire in an old high-rise apartment building in Shanghai earlier this month that resulted in the deaths of 58 passengers put the nation on edge.
In the first 10 months of this year, Shenzhen reported 774 fires, with one dead and six injured, and 11.4 million yuan (US$1.68 million) in damage, according to the city s firefighting department. (Mu Zi)
