TVCC of CCTV on fire
The northern building of the new CCTV complex was caught fire on Feb. 9, at around 8:00pm. The fire spread quickly and soon the entire structure was in flames.
The 44-storey building, about 200 meters from the iconic CCTV tower, houses the Television Culture Center (TVCC), the luxury Mandarin Oriental Hotel and an electronic data processing center.
According to Juliet Ye of WSJ, “people packed China’s online forums and blogs, uploaded pictures taken from the fiery scene and hit the streets to conduct their own reporting.” You can also find some collections in Danwei, or CNReviews, and “A Photo Play Of The CCTV Fire”, from ESWN. Click here to see the video filmed by BBC staffs.
The incident hasn’t been featured all that prominently on news portal front pages. An unproven guideline on the fire report was distributed online,
“All networks:
Regarding the “CCTV New North Side Building on Fire” report, all sites must use only the Xinhua news script. Do not post pictures, videos; do not report in depth; only post in Domestic (Chinese) news; close all posts and replies; do not put this as the “top topic”; do not place this in “Recommended Articles”.” — source: CNReviews.com
It turned out that CCTV itself is responsible for Monday’s massive fire (via China Daily). At the day after the fire, an office director at CCTV and 11 others have been detained by the Beijing police for questioning, according to state news agency Xinhua. Chinese continued to dissect the event online with a sardonic tilt. See EEO’s story about Chinese online reaction.