On Christmas night, Sunday, 26 people were confirmed dead and eight others injured, victims of a blaze that swept through a bar in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province.

 

The fire broke out at around 11:00 PM at the bar on Wenkang Road in Tanzhou Town, Zhongshan City, and was extinguished within 10 minutes.

 

According to local police, all of the injured were rushed to the hospital, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

 

In related news, two high-school students were confirmed dead from injuries suffered during a Christmas morning blaze in Beijing, local police announced Monday morning.

 

At around 7:00 AM, Sunday, fire erupted in an apartment building at the Maliandao residential quarters along a business center of Xuanwu District, central Beijing, in which four high-school students, aged 16 to 17, had gathered the prior night for Christmas Eve. Two of the four were killed by the blaze. Another student, surnamed Zheng, fled to the top of the six-story building to call for help. Police subsequently rescued him and another student, surnamed Lu.

 

It was theorized that the overheating of a video game player possibly caused the fire, but the actual origins of the blaze remain under investigation.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2005)