Many Chinese internet users learned of the tragedy from standardized state media reports some eight hours later.
Social media users in China expressed a mixture of anger and dismay late on Tuesday after a deadly hospital fire went unreported by state news outlets for nearly eight hours amid heavy online censorship.
On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like microblogging website, some users said they learned of the tragedy from the Western press. Unverified pictures and videos of the incident were often deleted.
The death toll from the previous day’s fire at the privately run Changfeng Hospital in Beijing’s Fengtai district rose to 29 on Wednesday, an official told a media briefing. It was the Chinese capital’s worst fire in at least two decades—a blaze at an internet cafe in 2002 killed 25 young customers.
All but three of the 29 victims were elderly patients in their 60s and 70s. The others were a carer, a nurse and a visitor, according to the official, who said the fire in the building’s inpatient department was caused by combustable paint ignited by sparks from construction work at just before 1 p.m. local time.
Authorities said the fire was brought under control in roughly 30 minutes, but the Chinese public didn’t learn about the incident until nearly 9 p.
