No fatalities after fire at China's tallest building
Fire broke out today at the site of China’s future tallest building, but it was extinguished after more than an hour without any reported casualties, state media said.
An initial investigation showed that the blaze at the Shanghai World Financial Centre in the heart of the city’s Pudong financial district was started by welding work, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Eight fire trucks had been dispatched to douse the fire which broke out about 4.30pm (9.30am Irish time) in an lift shaft on the 40th floor, Xinhua said, citing the Shanghai municipal public security bureau.
It was extinguished by 5.45pm (10.45 Irish time).
No injuries or deaths were reported, the public security bureau said.
The fire was just the latest travail to face the wedge-shaped tower, being built at a cost of nearly £100m (€147m).
The concrete, steel, and glass tower is due to be finished in 2008, when its 101 storeys will loom 1,614 feet over China’s business hub.
For six years after ground was broken at the site in the mid-1990s, the project was little more than a hole in the ground: The Asian financial crisis had virtually obliterated demand for new office space in Shanghai.
