Six killed in China mall fire, people trapped inside

Firefighters pulled six bodies from a shopping centre yesterday, with an unknown number still trapped after the building set ablaze sending plumes of thick black smoke into the air.Around 30 others have been rescued from the shopping complex in the city of Zigong in southwestern Sichuan province with the blaze extinguished by rescuers, state broadcaster CCTV said."Six people have been killed," CCTV reported, adding that search and rescue operations were continuing with people still trapped.Footage broadcast by the channel and shared on social media showed thick black smoke towering above the building."By 8.20pm, the fire had been extinguished," CCTV said.The fire started in the early evening in a shopping centre at the foot of a 14-storey building, the channel said.Other images shared on social media show people gathered in front of the burning building.Fire engines and ambulances could be seen nearby.Zigong's emergency services department received news about the fire at around 6.10pm and immediately dispatched firefighters to extinguish the blaze, the broadcaster said.The emergency department has called on the public to "not to believe or amplify rumours" about the fire.Zigong, some 1,900kms from the capital Beijing, is home to nearly 2.5mn people.Fires and other deadly accidents are common in China due to lax safety standards and poor enforcement.In January, dozens died after a fire broke out at a store in the central city of Xinyu, with state news agency Xinhua reporting the blaze had been caused by the "illegal" use of fire by workers in the store's basement.At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for lessons to be learned from the disaster to avoid further tragedies.The same month, a fire in a residential building killed at least 15 people.That fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central China's Henan province killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory.In June last year, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the northwest of the country left 31 dead and prompted official pledges of a nationwide campaign to promote workplace safety.And in April 2023, a fire in a Beijing hospital claimed 29 lives and forced desperate patients to jump from windows to escape.