The Roof is on Fire!
Feb 13, 2009 at 9:33 AM A massive fire engulfed a newly constructed, unoccupied luxury hotel in central Beijing on Monday night. The cause of the blaze at the 40-story Mandarin Oriental is not known, and there were no reports of injuries, according to CNN . The building is the annex to the Rem Koolhaus designed CCTV building---which dominates the Beijing skyline.
A friend of mine who lives in Beijing said it was a crazy scene. It happened on the last night of the Chinese New Year celebration-- while fireworks were going on all over the city. His email read below...
"So the building next to the fantastic Rem Koolhaas-designed CCTV building in Beijing burned last night. It was the partner to the CCTV building. This building was supposed to house the Mandarin Hotel amongst some other things. Happily nobody was injured but the scene was outrageous. Was on the way to dinner last night and walked the long way because a firework launch site for the last day of Chinese New Year was blocking our normal route. Come around the corner and there's a substantial but not uncontrollable fire on the roof. My girlfriend and I decided to go closer and watch for a bit. We stayed for 30 minutes until the fire trucks finally made an appearance. 30 minutes and the building was completely engulfed; it looked like an upturned log covered in burning embers. There were a couple amazing moments when the fire really spread where the building would breath these balls of fire and smoke...a sort of last gasp surge. Just passed it now on the way to the office and though completely burned out, it's standing and looks fairly stoic in the morning sun."
Reader Comments (2)
thats crazy --- nice post.
Unknown means someone needs insurance financing?