10 Killed in High-Rise Building Fire in Urumqi’s Lockdown Policy Blocked Fire Fighting

At around 19:00 on November 24th, a major fire broke out in a high-rise residential area in Urumqi, Xinjiang. The fire started on the 15th floor of a high-rise residential building, and spread to the 17th floor, with the smoke spreading to the 21st floor. According to the CCP’s official media reports, 10 people were killed and 9 people suffered moderate lung damages. Fire engines arrived at the scene shortly after the fire broke out. But, according to social media, the fire engines could not reach the building under fire right away because of the iron sheet put up around the residential area as part of the zero-case policy. It took almost 3 hours to remove the iron sheet. During this time, people trapped in the fire were even told to stay at home for pandemic isolation. This also means that residents could not go to the streets to move away their cars to make room for the fire engines. On top of this situation, the Xinjiang region has been locked down for 109 days, meaning that most cars in the affected area district probably could not be ignited anyway due to long term inactivity. All these together prevent fire engines from reaching the burning building in time to prevent human tragedies. Before the fire broke, the people in this community are only allowed to go downstairs for 2 hours a day, and the doors of the buildings are locked, despite the fact that the government designated the community as low-risk for CCP virus infection.