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Hotel inferno kills 33 in north China
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Authorities are looking into the cause of a hotel fire in the northeast Chinese city of Harbin, which claimed the lives of 33 people. More than 100 people were rescued from the blaze at Tian Tan Hotel, which started at about 6:00 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Sunday and took four firefighting teams under half an hour to extinguish, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. Ten people were rushed to hospital but were not considered to have life threatening injuries, Xinhua reported. Local officials at the scene coordinated rescue efforts, the report said, and have launched an investigation into the inferno. The municipal government has ordered safety checks throughout Harbin, a city of 9.1 million about 1300km (1300 miles) northeast of Beijing and capital of Heilongjiang province near China's border with the Russia's Far East. Inadequate safety measures in buildings in northern China, particularly a lack or blocking of fire exits, has often lead to high casualties from fires in high-population density areas. Like the rest of China, Harbin was celebrating the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday -- China's biggest festival. China welcomed in the Year of the Goat on Saturday and tourists have flocked to the city for its famous Ice Lantern festival, which features enormous sculptures made from snow and ice. Fireworks and fire offerings play a major part in the New Year festivities and, despite repeated safety crackdowns, cause many deaths and injuries every year. Last year, the number of blazes in the Chinese capital Beijing over the holiday increased more than four-fold from the year before, with over 700 fires recorded in the city. China's most deadly blaze to date was at a disco in Luoyang which left more that 300 people dead in December 2000.
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