BEIJING: Chinese state media said a fire in a workers’ dormitory has killed 12 people and injured 24 others in northwestern China.
The official Xinhua News Agency says the fire broke out early yesterday in a dormitory for workers on a water diversion project in Shaanxi province. It did not report the cause.
It says the workers are from a tunnel engineering subsidiary of China Railway firm.
A report on a news site run by the province said the dormitory was a three-story make-shift building.
Separately, Chinese social media websites erupted in outrage yesterday over claims that a provincial official tried to suppress a newspaper report detailing his expensive tastes in luxury accessories.
Microblog users claimed that tens of thousands of copies of a daily newspaper were destroyed on Monday after they carried a report about the senior official in the government of the southeastern province of Fujian.
Users posted the alleged report from the newspaper, which claimed that Li Devin, director of the Fujian provincial communications department, owned a 50,000 yuan ($7,900) Rado watch and 15,000 yuan Hermes belt.
The newspaper is based in the southwestern city of Kunming in Yunnan province.
Users of Weibo, the micro blogging service of leading portal Sina.com, retweeted the post more than 100,000 times.
They also left thousands of comments calling Li “Uncle Watch” and accusing him of corruption and abuse of power by seeking to suppress the story.
“Thanks to the party and the government, for training so many corrupt officials over the years,” wrote one user.
Calls by AFP to Fujian government offices went unanswered yesterday while a spokeswoman at the newspaper refused comment.
12 Chinese workers die, 24 hurt in dormitory fire
