Twenty people were killed in a fire in a nursing home in northeast China, media report.
The fire in the city of Chengde, in the province of Hebei, broke out on Tuesday evening, local time and died in about two hours.
Nineteen people survived the fire and were transported to the hospital for observation, according to reports.
The authorities are investigating the cause of the fire and a person in charge of the house was detained. No other details were immediately available.
On social networks, some called for an in -depth investigation while others expressed their sympathy for the elderly victims.
“Elderly people already have mobility problems,” wrote a Weibo user. “I can’t imagine how desperate they had to feel during fire.”
The nursing homes and care establishments for the elderly doubled between 2019 and 2024, according to the authorities, because China deals with an increasing aging population.
In 2023, 29 people died – many of them – and dozens were injured after a private Beijing hospital caught fire.
