Local govt blames market’s management for blaze

The municipal government has blamed the management of one of the Shanghai's major wholesale produce markets for a fire that left five dead and 14 injured in Pudong New Area, according to a post on the government's official microblog Monday.

The fire broke out around 8:30 pm Sunday inside the Shanghai Central Farm Produce Wholesale Market at 2000 Hunan Road. The Shanghai Fire Protection Bureau sent 57 fire engines to the blaze, which they had under control around 11 pm, according to the Shanghai Evening Post. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

The local commerce authority said Monday that the fire had affected the city's food supply, according to the news website xinmin.cn. The market handles about 30 percent of the city's meat by value and 50 percent of its fruit and seafood.

The 200,000-square-meter market is made up of hundreds of individual shop stalls, each of which has its own rolling door. Because most of the shops were already closed, firefighters had to break into every shop to ensure the fire hadn't spread inside one of the stalls, the Shanghai Evening Post reported. In total, the blaze consumed 117 stalls in the market, covering an area of about 4,000 square meters.

Eight of the injured were sent to Changhai Hospital in Yangpu district, according to the report. The others were transported to Ruijin Hospital.

A severely injured woman remained in critical condition Monday at Changhai Hospital, according to a doctor surnamed Qiu. The 57-year-old suffered from burns over 85 percent of her body and severe smoke inhalation.

The woman's 9-year-old granddaughter had burns over 48 percent of her body. The woman's husband, daughter-in-law and 8-year-old grandson were also injured in the fire, the doctor said. They remained in the hospital's intensive care unit Monday afternoon.

Many of the market's vendors had built an upper level above their shops where they lived and stored surplus goods.

"Many sellers from outside of Shanghai live in their shops," a butcher surnamed Zhao told the Global Times.

The vendors had installed electrical wiring in their shops, said Tan Xun, a deputy director of the firefighting department of the Shanghai Fire Fighting Bureau, as quoted by Shanghai Television Station.

The accident affected the business of nearby shops. "There are usually a lot of customers from 7 am to noon, but there is almost no one today," Zhao said.

The municipal government has called on government agencies at all levels to investigate fire hazards in the city.

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