While residents have been given relief in recent weeks as Covid cases have dropped dramatically, a deadly fire at the Shanghai Petrochemical Plant in Sinopec on Saturday brought back Hollywood-like horror.
Many in the city of 26 million in northeastern China earlier this year felt like the end of the world, as a large-scale outbreak of the Corona virus closed residents to their homes with little hope of coming.
The streets were disturbingly empty as the authorities strictly implemented China’s tough strategy for zero cases COVID.
Footage circulating of the fire at a petrochemical plant in #China is eerie end-of-the-world stuff. It’s now been brought under control but at least one death. It started in #Shanghai area at 4am today. Gotta be pretty toxic air too. pic.twitter.com/ubrdJNqgsm
— Stephen McDonell (@StephenMcDonell) June 18, 2022
A video has gone viral on Chinese social media showing the Shanghai skyline filled with black smoke. A raging fire was seen engulfing part of a sprawling factory, emitting endless plumes of smoke.
The BBC’s China correspondent Stephen McDonnell said the video was ‘A strange thing … the end of the world’.
