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CCTV Tower On Fire! - Beijing's cutting edge architecture gem in flames!

Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 8:08PM / Standard Entry / China / Members only
17 comments

Originally written at 11pm on 2/9/09:
Did you guys hear about this? I just heard about it, its finally showing up in the news online -

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel as part of the CCTV Tower Complex in Beijing caught fire and its engulfed in huge flames - 中央电视台新址附近发生大火:

(photos by Reuters)

44-story hotel in flames. Its not yet open to the public (luckily!)

Massive Blaze Engulfs New Beijing Tower

Hotel adjacent to Beijing's new CCTV headquarters on fire

Fire claims building at CCTV Beijing headquarters

Seven Miao has really good pictures of the CCTV Tower Fire on his blog too. Click here to see them!

you can see in his pictures that the arch tower is apparently not burning, just the adjacent hotel! (whew!)

UPDATE 1: Another view -

looks pretty trashed! :-O

more news links here:
http://news.google.com.hk/news?hl=en&q=cctv%20tower&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

I wonder what this means for CCTV and for Beijing? Is it an accident? or is it a suspicious fire caused by criminals? or protesters? terrorists? There's some speculation that its Chinese New Years Fireworks gone-awry? Its obviously too early to speculate! I just hope the causalities from this fire are at a minimum. Its a shame to see such nice, new architecture get damaged.

If there's any silver lining in this disaster, its to show those 9/11-conspiracy theorists that fire + steel reinforced building = bad.   (something they don't believe is physically possible).

Update 2: the official word is that its a fireworks related accidental fire. Hmm... were the construction workers playing with fireworks inside of the building? on the roof? (how would it get inside?)   Is this a cover-up?

Either way, i think the building shouldn't have burnt this badly if it was built to proper code, don't you think? (I'd have to check, but I think even with buildings under construction they're supposed to put sprinklers and fire surpression systems in before they get much beyond the steel and concrete stage (ie - if it was fully decorated with carpets and furniture and wood, etc it should have working sprinklers). Someone's going to be getting the blame, I'm sure.

Update 3: WOW, if you go to g00gle and type in "CCTV tower on fire" this blog shows up as like the 5th result! (if you search for "CCTV fire" in g00gle HK, it comes out 3rd or 4th!)

ALSO it looks like the Chinese Government has asked news outlets in China to stop posting news that differs from the official reports on the subject. Doh, I guess all my endless speculation without evidence here will violate that request! :-P

Actually to be honest I don't necessarily thing that is an unreasonable request - China has a serious 'internet mob' problem. Trying to stop them from whipping eachother into a frenzy over misinformation is probably a good thing for EVERYONE... if they don't try to stay on top of this, next thing you know there's going to be a crowd of people outside all the Carreforre locations in China burning effigies of Sharon Stone and turning over Japanese cars! :-D

Update 4: Apparently it was CCTV's own fireworks was what started the fire?!?

Update 5: Wow, they arrested as many as 12 people for this. According to Xinhua they were using big fireworks without a permit. No explanation as to why the sprinklers weren't turned on though... CCTV has given an apology but forgot to mention the firefighter who died putting out the fire? Some more details here:

CCTV Official Detained over Massive Fire
Beijing party that went horribly wrong.

One article mentioned that there were several cameras filming the fireworks display that started the fire. I wonder if any of that video will ever be seen by the public? :-P

Keywords: CCTV Tower Fire, Beijing Fire, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Beijing Fire, CCTV Inferno, CCTV Headquarters Fire, Beijing Suspicious Fire, 9/11 Conspiracy, steel Frame building fire collapse, Edison Chen, Chinese New Years Fireworks Cause Fire, Beijing fire. 中央电视台新址附近发生大火

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Etchy
posted on Thursday, Feb 12, 2009 8:40PM

ZYF - 我同意! 好浪費!!!!
Zhou Xiao Fei
posted on Thursday, Feb 12, 2009 8:36PM [Report]

触目惊心，令人遗憾！
Etchy
posted on Thursday, Feb 12, 2009 12:00PM

xibanyae - yeah good question. If I had to hazzard a guess, I'm going to assume that the first thing they put in once the structure is up is the piping and the wiring (Before the walls and carpeting and other flamable stuff goes in). so there should have been sprinklers and what not in there.
xibanyae
posted on Thursday, Feb 12, 2009 11:55AM [Report]

ah, it;s back now ;)
so, i was going to ask, was there an anti-fire system at all in thay modern wonder? or what?
JoanneSanderson
posted on Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009 10:09PM [Report]

Ah I see!!
MissScarlett
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 11:43PM [Report]

"At least thats what the state media is saying at this point."

Hmmm... no comment necessary...
Etchy
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 12:31PM

joanne - the building on fire was just the hotel that was adjacent to the state controlled national TV company's new headquarters (a rather fancy piece of architecture). I suppose they could be the target of something like terrorism... a big juicy target for anti-government groups in "East Turkistan" or Tibet, etc....

BUT it looks like from the news that this is more likely a case of fireworks gone awry. At least thats what the state media is saying at this point.
tinlunlau
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 7:18AM [Report]

holy shit! this looks serious!
my friend Jennifer Hsiung hosts a show for CCTV. (Hong kong viewers can watch her show in the mornings on TVB Pearl...i think it's called Culture Express.) i should get back in touch with her to ask about the situation.
JoanneSanderson
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 4:08AM [Report]

I take it that it's a controversial building, shame it's been destroyed.
Shan Chen
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 2:04AM [Report]

damn it, i need to be more skillful next time.
janechu
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 1:40AM [Report]

oh yea... I just heard this on the chinese radio over here... but my gosh, looking at the pictures... I hope they have control over the fire soon...
xibanyae
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 12:44AM [Report]

nononono! it was the bad karma!!!! :p

(please, this is only joking! ;)
my god, terrible incident!!!)
MissScarlett
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 12:39AM [Report]

haha! I'm with you on that. Ugh! Those people make me nuts...
amengguilai
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 12:13AM [Report]

Fortunately, no damage to the two-legged tower.

I heard that the fire was caused by fireworks display for celebrating the Lantern Festival. I think it's possible.
Juia
posted on Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 12:04AM [Report]

I just saw this news on TV.
they reported this terrible fire caused by squib. accident? or .....?
Etchy
posted on Monday, Feb 9, 2009 11:52PM

miss scarlett - sorry , i can't resist, they are one of my most disliked group of people... i hate junk science! :-P
MissScarlett
posted on Monday, Feb 9, 2009 11:50PM [Report]

That's so sad :( So much time, money and investment lost... I hope no one was hurt.

(HA! @ the 9/11-conspiracy theorists remark =D)