This photo taken on Jan 20, 2024 shows the fire site at the Yingcai School in Dushu Town, Fangcheng County, Nanyang City, central China's Henan Province. A work team was sent to central China's Henan Province during the night to guide rescue and follow-up work after a school dormitory fire on Friday night, the Ministry of Emergency Management said on Saturday. Photo:Xinhua

China's Ministry of Emergency Management have deployed resources and a work group led by director of the National Fire and Rescue Administration has been dispatched to Fangcheng county, Central China's Henan Province, after a fire at a local school claimed 13 lives and injured one on late Friday night.
At 11 pm on Friday, the 119 Command Center in Fangcheng county, Nanyang, Henan Province received an emergency call reporting a fire at a Yingcai School dormitory in Yanshanpu village, Dushu township. The incident tragically resulted in 13 fatalities and one person injured, the state broadcaster China Central Television reported Saturday.

The dormitory room housed approximately 30 boarding students when the fire broke out. Except for the 14 who suffered casualties, the remaining students were safely evacuated, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Yingcai School is a private school with a history of more than 10 years. It primarily enrolls students from nearby rural areas, including some left-behind children, according to Xinhua.

The school has an affiliated kindergarten. Before the incident occurred, the kindergarten's children had already returned home for the weekend, according to the report.

Upon receiving the report, Wang Xiangxi, the minister of emergency management, immediately deployed resources, urging comprehensive fire hazard inspections in densely populated areas to prevent major accidents. A workgroup led by Qiong Se, member of the Emergency Management Ministry Party Committee and Director of the National Fire and Rescue Administration, was swiftly dispatched to the scene to guide rescue efforts, investigate the fire, and manage incident response procedures, according to a post from the official WeChat account of the Ministry of Emergency Management.

According to the post, local firefighting teams immediately dispatched 32 personnel and six vehicles to the scene to extinguish fire. As of 11:38 pm on Friday, the fire was successfully extinguished.

Investigation into the incident has been launched by local authorities, and the person in charge of the school has been brought under control by police, the Xinhua report said.

According to a report by The Paper, a local resident said that the Yingcai School is a private school with a considerable number of enrolled students. The school follows a schedule of a two-week break, and unfortunately, this weekend was not one of those breaks. The fire occurred around 22:00 on Friday, originating from the student dormitories. The school's owner, known as Li Jizhong, is well-recognized in the community and was formerly a teacher and he also operates another Yingcai School in the same town, which is similar in scale to the one in Yanshanpu Village.

Another local resident told The Paper that the school includes both a kindergarten and an elementary school section, typically observing a two-week break. Students usually reside at the school, and as of now, the school has not entered its winter vacation. Another resident near the Yingcai School mentioned that the school operates as a semi-closed private one, primarily catering to children from rural areas.

Global Times