Anger builds over safety breaches at Jilin poultry plant where fire killed 120

Gross breaches of fire safety and labour regulations exposed by Monday's deadly fire at a mainland poultry slaughterhouse - including locked doors and a lack of fire escapes - were fuelling rising anger yesterday among the families of the victims.

The official Xinhua News Agency said on Wednesday that the death toll in the Jilin disaster had reached 120, with 77 injured.  But friends and relatives of staff at the Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry slaughterhouse in Dehui said they feared the toll could rise because the government had yet to give a figure for the number of missing.

Zhao Xian, a spokesman for the Changchun government that administers Dehui, said of the 77 people admitted to hospital, seven were in critical condition and nine were in serious condition.

He refused to respond to questions about the cause of the fire and then abruptly left the news conference.

Yao Chunxue , who lost a niece in the blaze, said the deaths were a man-made tragedy because five of the six doors in the No2 workshop were locked to prevent workers from taking unauthorised breaks. He said its design was fatally flawed because there were no fire exits.

The 58-year old farmer said people were particularly angry because local fire-safety authorities had inspected the four-year-old slaughterhouse just three days before the blaze. "They knew what was wrong with the slaughterhouse but have done nothing for so long," he said. "We're now seeing hundreds of police mobilised within a day to deal with people like us, but what if they could spend a fraction of that cost on workplace safety?"