A fire broke out in a restaurant at the Joy City mall in Beijing’s Chaoyang District Wednesday morning, making it the second fire to take place in the shopping center since it opened in 2010.
Heavy smoke was spotted coming from a restaurant kitchen on the top floor of the mall, and firefighters rushed to the scene after receiving distress calls at around 10:30am. Fortunately, no one was killed or injured.
“The fire was under control within five minutes,” said a staff member at the mall, adding that it was just a fire in the chimney flue.
Although it didn't inflict any severe damage, the fire still sparked heated online discussion about the Fengshui of the mall, due to the uncannily high frequency of incidents occurring at this location.
As of last night, the topic “Chaoyang Joy City Fengshui” was trending on Weibo and had over 67,000 searches. The attention was so overwhelming that a staff member at the shopping mall had to come out and deny that the incidents over the years had anything to do with poor geomancy, adding “despite the thorough security system and personnel at the mall, some occurrences are accidental and uncontrollable.”
In April 2013, a fire broke out in a restaurant kitchen on the sixth floor. However, the mall kept the first to fourth floor open during the fire without notifying or evacuating the customers shopping there.
Last August, heavy smoke was spotted once again at a construction site in front of the mall.
Just under a month ago on November 30, pedestrians walking by the mall were struck by a large section of the exterior wall that was blown off by gale-force winds, one dead and another severely injured.
There have also been several violent incidents that have taken place at the not-so-joyful Joy City. In July last year, a 27-year-old mentally ill man stabbed a man and a woman to death just outside the mall. In December, 2012, a 24-year-old man slit the throat of a 34-year-old with a knife in the underground parking lot over a car scratch.
The extensive report by the Beijing-based Legal Evening News, listing all the previous incidents at the mall, has since been removed from its website and has been replaced by a much shorter story.
Joy City shopping mall is among the wide range of branded products and services provided by the state-owned China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO Group), the country’s largest foodstuff manufacturer and trader, which often sparks public concern over its humongous monopoly in a diversity of businesses across the nation.
[images via NetEase & Beijing News]
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