Photos and videos emerged Friday of a 42-story skyscraper in China going up in flames in Changsha, a city that is home to nearly 10 million people.
Chinese-state media said that the building housed offices of the government-owned telecommunications company China Telecom.
“To prevent serious danger, some equipment in the building has been switched off,” China Telecom said in a statement. “Right now, fixed-lined communication and mobile internet service can be accessed as normal, though the voice function in some mobile phones may be affected. This is being handled urgently.”
AFP reported that these types of fires are not uncommon in China due to “lax enforcement of building codes and rampant unauthorized construction.”
❗️In #China, the skyscraper of the largest telecom operator China Telecom in #Changsha is on fire. Hundreds of people could be burned alive. pic.twitter.com/GDNC74k8Tj
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 16, 2022
China did not immediately report any casualties from the fire that engulfed the 720-foot building. 280 firefighters and nearly 40 fire engines were dispatched to the combat the fire.
WATCH: High-rise engulfed in flames in Changsha, China; no victims reported so far according to state media pic.twitter.com/8EJS8f6aVa
— BNO News (@BNONews) September 16, 2022
Reports out of China have to be taken worth a grain of salt, especially when it concerns something that makes the country look bad.
For example, U.S. officials have said that they believe a pilot flying for China Eastern Airlines intentionally crashed a Boeing 737-800 passenger plane earlier this year, killing all 132 people on board. Chinese officials have yet to release their report on the crash.
During the coronavirus pandemic, top U.S. officials indicated that they believe China “intentionally” underreported their true numbers “by at least a factor of 50.” British officials reportedly told former Prime Minister Boris Johnson early in the pandemic that China could have underreported their numbers “by a factor of 15 to 40 times.”
The Washington Post reported in April 2020 that “evidence” coming out of Wuhan suggested that the real death count was over 40,000, which came as China claimed at the time that it only had a little over 4,600 deaths nationwide. A conservative estimate in April 2020 from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) — which gave China every benefit of the doubt when coming up with their calculations, and then some — suggested that China severely and “deliberately” underreported their numbers and that China’s true numbers at the time had to be at least 2.9 million infections with well over 100,000 deaths.
Related: World Health Organization Head Now ‘Privately’ Blames Chinese Lab For Coronavirus Pandemic: Report