China
Deadly blaze in Sichuan extinguished
(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-07 08:06
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CHENGDU - Firefighters on Monday put out a wildfire that had raged for about 24 hours on a plateau grassland in Southwest China's Sichuan province and left 22 dead and four injured.
The four injured - three soldiers and one civilian - were transferred to Chengdu, the provincial capital, for further treatment.
Two helicopters with the army air corps from Chengdu retrieved the injured from Kangding, capital of the Garze Tibetan autonomous prefecture, on Monday afternoon.
Badro, the civilian patient, was sent to the intensive care unit in Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital for treatment.
According to Hu Weijian, director of the hospital's emergency center, the 51-year-old Tibetan woman was in critical condition with third-degree burns on 90 percent of her body, bone fractures and kidney failure.
Zhang Ye, an official with the Chengdu Military Area Command, said the three soldiers sent to Chengdu Military General Hospital were in stable condition.
The casualties occurred on Sunday afternoon when the firefighters were putting out the fire in a gorge 6 km from Dawu county in Garze. A strong gust of wind fanned a blaze that engulfed the group, trapping and killing 22 in the gorge.
A local official who had participated in the mission on Sunday said that the gorge was about 2 km long and 200 meters deep from the mountain peak. Part of the hillside was almost vertical - as steep as 80 degrees.
Among the dead, 15 were soldiers and seven civilians.
Fire control officials immediately ordered the remaining crew to retreat to avoid more casualties.
Qin Tingqun, a firefighting officer in Dawu county, said fire engines could not immediately reach the scene in the hilly grassland and firefighters had to put out the fire with portable fire-extinguishing devices and makeshift tools.
At one point as many as 2,000 firefighters were on the scene, but they still faced difficulties posed by the tough terrain.
The open fire was extinguished by Monday noon, according to local authorities.
Sichuan Governor Jiang Jufeng was still overseeing the work of clearing embers in an area of about 50 hectares.
The provincial weather station said winds had abated on Monday, which would help firefighters extinguish embers.
The fire was only 1 km from a village near Xianshui town, which has about 100 households.
Herdsmen of two villages near the burned-out area had to drive their livestock to other areas for forage.
Eight firefighters and two fire engines had been deployed at the town as a precaution, said Qin.
About 100 detachments were still patrolling the burnt area.
The county has begun plans to set up a mourning facility for the dead and to console their family members.
The cause of the grassland blaze is still under investigation.
China Daily - Xinhua