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September 29, 2016

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Kangding Road market is forced to shut down

JINGJIANG Market on Kangding Road, a major downtown market for decoration and construction materials, has been shut down for violating fire safety requirements.

The announcement was made yesterday by the Ministry of Public Security. The closure took effect a week ago.

The market, which incorporates more than 50 stores, is housed in a renovated old factory house in Jing’an District. But because of its proximity to a residential community and a gas station, it posed a severe safety risk, said the district government.

The market was one of the four local concerns listed by the ministry this month as being fire risks. The others were a printing house, a log storage yard and a logistics company.

The market had failed to install a spray system or fire alarms, while many fire extinguishers examined were found to be useless, the city’s fire control authority said.

Furthermore, most of the store owners were living on site and the market had more than 500 illegal structures — mostly used for accommodation. At its peak, 350 people are estimated to have lived inside the market.

The Jiangning Road Subdistrict along with the district’s police, fire control and market supervision authorities began demolishing illegal structures last April and asked store owners to stop living on site and to install fire prevention facilities.

However, few people did as asked and the authority decided this month to shut down the market because of the safety risks, according to the subdistrict.

All store owners were asked to leave by last Friday and the fire control authority sealed the entrances to the market, the Shanghai Fire Control Bureau said.

Some store owners who refused to leave were removed by force, the bureau said.

About 20 police officers, firefighters and subdistrict officers have been posted inside the market around the clock to prevent any store reopening. Water and electricity supplies have been cut off, the bureau said.

“We can finally sleep well because the market was shut down,” said a nearby resident who has been living in a building beside the market for three decades. She said residents had long been concerned about the fire risk.




 

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