Many WeChat posts about the deadliest fire in the capital for quite some time, were taken down
A fire at a Beijing hospital was one of the Chinese capital’s deadliest in at least two decades.
At least 26 patients have died and dozens of others wounded.
Social media showed dramatic videos of people using tied bed sheets to climb down the walls to escape smoke and flames.
However, many posts about the fire on WeChat had been either censored or deleted in China.
Officials told media the fire mostly affected a wing for critically ill patients, caused by inflammable painting material at a ward under renovation.
“Rescue work at the scene concluded in 3.5 hours, but the public only knew that 21 had died from the fire when it was already past eight in the evening,” one person wrote in a WeChat post subsequently deleted.
“It is very puzzling that little information was known about a fire killing 21 people in a densely-populated major city like Beijing before the official notification.”
