Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Fire destroys Beijing skyscraper and it is still standing
#1
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/world/...ml?_r=1&hp

Fire Ravages Renowned Building in Beijing

[Image: 09beijing-600.jpg] David Gray/Reuters
A crowd watched as a building designed by Rem Koolhaas burned in Beijing on Monday


By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: February 9, 2009
BEIJING — A fierce blaze started by an illegal fireworks show engulfed one of the Chinese capital’s most architecturally celebrated modern buildings on Monday, the last day of festivities for the Lunar New Year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Tuesday.


[Image: audio_icon.gif] Back Story With The Times's Andrew Jacobs


The fire was not extinguished until early Tuesday morning. Xinhua, quoting a fire official, said a fireworks company had been hired to ignite several hundred large firecrackers in an open space outside the building, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which was under construction.
The official described them as illegal fireworks that much more powerful and explosive than those sold at roadside stalls.
One firefighter was killed and seven people were injured, including six firefighters, according to Xinhua.
The 34-story building, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and containing the hotel and a cultural center, is part of China Central Television’s new headquarters, an angular behemoth built to coincide with the Beijing Olympics last year. The structure consists of two slanting towers that are joined by spans at the top and bottom. Xinhua reported that CCTV had hired the fireworks company.
Firefighters, their equipment reaching up only a dozen or so floors, could do little to contain the blaze, a spectacular wall of flames reflected in the glass skin of the adjacent CCTV tower.
The CCTV complex was an expensive trophy of the pre-Olympics building boom, the result of many billions of dollars that the Communist Party had devoted to making Beijing a city of the future. The main CCTV tower appeared untouched by the fire.
The 241-room hotel, which had been due to open this summer, was unoccupied at the time, hotel executives said.
According to Chinese television, the fire began at 8:27 p.m. Monday, although witnesses said they spotted flames as early as 7:45 p.m. Within 20 minutes, they said, the fire had spread from the lower floors to the building’s crown. Smoke drifted across the night sky, obliterating a full moon.
The authorities blocked off a thoroughfare known as the Third Ring Road, which runs adjacent to the complex. Subway cars running underneath the site were briefly halted, stranding thousands of passengers. Frantic police officers tried to shoo away huge crowds as sirens wailed and fireworks lighted up the skyline . People watching noted that the timing of the fire, at the end of the spring festival, was inauspicious.
The city had been crackling with fireworks for the annual Lantern Festival, the final day of the two-week Chinese New Year holiday.
A spokesman for Mr. Koolhaas’s firm in Rotterdam, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, called the fire “a great tragedy.” The spokesman, Stefan Petermann, said the firm had won the competition for the building in 2002; groundbreaking took place in 2004, and the building was due to be completed this May.
As they stood gaping at the blaze, many people said the fire would be widely interpreted as a poor omen for the coming year.
Fan Wenxin, 20, a waiter who works a few blocks from the complex, rattled off a litany of disasters that have shaken China in recent months, among them the Sichuan earthquake, the riots in Tibet and a drought that has left Beijing and much of northern China without precipitation for more than three months. “This does not bode well for the new year,” he said.
Edward Wong contributed reporting from Beijing, and Graham Bowley from New York.
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx

"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.

“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Reply
#2
One can see from the photo that the fires were limited in area and just smoldering :proud: You can believe the authorities on the WTC - in fact, you can believe the authorities on everything - they have only our best interests at heart. Laugh

By the way, physics works different in Chinese than English with a Neuw Yourk accent.
Reply
#3
China needs to get On Message.

Dammit. There's a War on Terror going on.

:fight:
"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."

Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."
The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war
Reply
#4
It's a communist plot :lollypop:
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx

"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.

“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Reply
#5
Confucius say: "tall building not fall when set alight. Flame go up, not building down. Only in America such things happen."

Other Confucian saying can be found HERE.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Study: Fire Did Not Bring Down BLdg 7 Lauren Johnson 0 1,962 04-09-2019, 07:59 PM
Last Post: Lauren Johnson
  Dubai Hotel Fire Further Proof To Lie of Fires Bringing Down Steel-frame Buildings Peter Lemkin 4 6,599 01-01-2016, 06:21 PM
Last Post: Dawn Meredith
  Fire Nuke Flood - 9/11 Truth and Justice + Gaza Jonathan Mark 0 2,141 28-06-2011, 08:56 PM
Last Post: Jonathan Mark
  Shanghai fire blaze David Guyatt 4 3,523 16-11-2010, 10:22 AM
Last Post: Peter Lemkin
  Pentagon Destroys Copies of Controversial Memoir Written by Army Officer Peter Lemkin 11 9,589 11-10-2010, 06:35 AM
Last Post: Peter Lemkin

Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)