Monday, February 09, 2009

The Towering Inferno

See, this is why you don’t set off fireworks in the middle of a city.  This is happening about two miles from my apartment.  The odd-looking building in the foreground is the CCTV tower, which is China’s state-run television center.

There isn’t much news yet.  Here’s a Google translation of a Chinese news site.  It looks like the building on fire is a hotel.  Now, even with fireworks going off everywhere there’s no excuse for an entire building to torch up like that.  It’ll be interesting to see how this is spun tomorrow.  I imagine a few people will be arrested, some imprisoned, one or two executed.  Problem solved.

Update: Check out this translated page.  Note the way they proudly stress that the first thing the government did was declare martial law for that area, with armed police quickly taking control of the situation.  Much less was said about rescue efforts, firefighters, and the like.  Order is paramount above all other considerations.