Shanghai Mourns an Avoidable Apartment Blaze

(Shanghai) – Chen Yunmei awoke suddenly from an afternoon nap to the acrid smell of smoke.

Thick clouds had filled her flat on the 10th floor of the Jiaozhou Apartments in Shanghai. Chen scrambled for air, but found even more impenetrable smoke choking the hallway outside her front door. There seemed no escape.

Chen grabbed a mobile phone and dialed the fire emergency number. She got a busy signal: Calls for help from the 28-story building at 728 Jiaozhou Road, in the city's Jing'an District, had already jammed the fire department's lines.

Eventually some 122 fire engines, three police helicopters and more than 1,300 firefighters, police officers and other rescuers were mobilized to battle the horrific – yet officials say entirely preventable – fire that raced through the high-rise November 15. At least 58 people died and more than a hundred were injured in the deadliest fire in Shanghai's modern history.