Most Shantou hotel fire victims were young karaoke hostesses
They may never be identified as they used fake names
Most of the 31 victims killed in a fire at a Shantou hotel on Friday cannot be identified because they were karaoke hostesses who did not register their real names with their employer.
The semi-official China News Services reported yesterday that all the victims were female and most were in their 20s. Mostly from Sichuan, Jiangxi and Hubei provinces, they were working with another 80 colleagues, accompanying guests while they drank and sang karaoke.
The fire broke out around noon on Friday in a karaoke room on the second floor, and quickly engulfed the four-storey Huanan Hotel. Some of the victims leapt to their death. Witnesses said some windows and doors were locked, making escape difficult.
The report said the hotel operator failed to report to the police after the fire broke out, and did not evacuate the building. 'The police were only alerted after passers-by saw the flames. By the time the firefighters arrived, the building was burning fiercely,' the report said.
It did not say whether the provision of karaoke hostesses services was directly linked to the delay in reporting.
Some guests on upper floors did not have enough time to escape, while others died in toilets where they sought refuge from the flames. The report also criticised the lack of firefighting facilities, including an adequate water supply.
One surviving hostess said she was sleeping with five or six colleagues in a room when a hotel captain phoned and asked them to go to the second-floor karaoke hall to serve clients.
As soon as she opened the door of her room, she found herself surrounded by smoke.
She and her colleagues managed to break through barbed wire blocking the windows, and escaped. The disaster was the most serious fire in Guangdong province since 1994.
The State Administration of Work Safety, the national industrial accident watchdog, has sent a task force to Guangdong.
Police are also looking for the contractor of the hotel. The fire prompted Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua to order an overhaul of work safety, saying the 'lesson of blood' should serve as a reminder that the province should plug any loopholes.
