WORLD NEWS: SIX KILLED IN CHINA MALL FIRE, SOME TRAPPED INSIDE

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Six dead bodies have been removed from a shopping center in southwest China by firefighters, according to official broadcaster CCTV, who also reported that several people are still trapped. The fire had sent plumes of dense black smoke towering over the structure.

According to the channel, some thirty more people had been saved from the shopping center in Zigong, Sichuan Province.

“Six people have been killed,” state broadcaster CCTV said, adding that search and rescue operations are continuing.

Footage broadcast by the channel and shared on social media showed thick black smoke rising from the building.

“By 8:20 pm (1220 GMT), the fire had been extinguished,” CCTV said.

According to the station, the fire broke out in the early evening in a shopping center at the base of a 14-story structure.

The AFP was unable to immediately confirm the authenticity of other social media posts that showed people congregating in front of the blazing structure.

Ambulances and fire engines were visible in the vicinity.

The broadcaster stated that as soon as Zigong’s emergency services department learned about the fire at 6:11 local time, firemen were sent to put it out.

The public has been urged by the emergency agency “not to believe or amplify rumors” regarding the incident.

Zigong is home to about 2.5 million people and is located about 1,900 kilometers from Beijing, the capital.

China has a high rate of fires and other fatal accidents as a result of inadequate safety regulations and enforcement.

Numerous people lost their lives in a fire that occurred in January at a business located in the central city of Xinyu. According to state news agency Xinhua, the fire was started by workers in the company’s basement who were using fire “illegally.”

At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged that the catastrophe be studied in order to prevent similar disasters in the future.

At least fifteen individuals were murdered in a residential building fire that same month.

It had been days since thirteen students, sleeping in a dorm, had been killed in a late-evening fire at a school in the central Chinese province of Henan.

29 people lost their lives in a rare hospital fire in Beijing in April of last year, forcing frantic patients to jump out of windows to get away.