Fire devastated a nearly completed 3 billion yuan (HK$3.4 billion) sports stadium in Jinan , Shandong province , yesterday, the second blaze at the venue in less than five months.
Although no one was killed or injured, the fire again put the quality of government construction projects at the centre of national attention.
The fire at the Jinan Olympic Sports Stadium broke out before noon, a local reporter said.
'It was already a spectacle when I reached the stadium,' he said. 'Thousands of workers and residents had surrounded the site and were watching the fire with excitement. The party secretary and the mayor arrived with a group of officials and they all looked very annoyed.
'Smoke was coming out almost exactly opposite the spot where it rose from last time.'
And again, the fuel for the fire was a plastic membrane installed in the ceiling of the 10,000-seat stadium to collect rainwater channelled from the aluminium-alloy roof. On July 27, sparks from welding equipment fell on the membrane and set off a blaze that lasted more than four hours.
Lieutenant Wang Yuxiao , deputy chief of the city's firefighting squadron, said the membrane had again caught fire.