No fewer than twenty people have been killed in a fire at a nursing home in northeast China, state media report.
The fire in Chengde, Hebei province, started on Tuesday night local time and was put out in approximately two hours.
Nineteen people escaped the fire and were transported to the hospital for evaluation, according to reports.
Authorities are looking into the cause of the fire, and the person in charge of the house has been detained. No other information was immediately provided.
On social media, some people demanded a thorough investigation, while others expressed pity for the elderly victims.
“Old people already have mobility issues,” one Weibo user wrote. “I can’t imagine how desperate they must have felt during the fire.”
According to authorities, the number of nursing homes and aged care facilities in China will quadruple between 2019 and 2024 as the country’s population becomes older.
In 2023, a private hospital in Beijing caught fire, killing 29 people, many of whom were old, and injuring scores.
