China’s Covid protests grow after apartment blaze kills 10
Scenes of protest from the locked-down western Chinese city of Urumqi have spread on social media after a fire killed 10 people, as nationwide unrest over the country’s strict Covid policies continues to build.
Social media posts alleged that restrictions in the capital of Xinjiang province, which has been locked down since August, hampered rescue efforts and the ability of residents to escape the fire in an apartment block on Thursday evening.
Unverified videos of protests in the city on Friday evening were widely circulated. Officials on Saturday denied some of the claims about the fire and said certain images online of locked doors were fake, China’s state media agency Xinhua reported.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li
