TOWERING INFERNO

Huge Fire Rips Through China Telecom Office Building

State media said the devastating blaze “burned with great intensity.”

Terrifying images show dozens of stories of a skyscraper office building engulfed in flames during a catastrophic fire in China on Friday afternoon.

The 200-meter China Telecom building in Changsha, the capital of the southern Hunan province, “burned with great intensity,” state broadcaster CCTV said. Videos of the blaze shared online showed huge plumes of thick black smoke billowing into the sky as flames appeared to erupt from almost the entire height of the building.

State media said the fire was extinguished, Reuters reports. The Hunan fire department said no casualties had been found, Singaporean outlet CNA reported, adding that preliminary investigations suggested the outer wall of the 42-story tower had caught fire.

One video shared on Twitter purporting to show the early stages of the blaze showed people inside the building running for the exits.

In a statement released on social media, China Telecom said: “By around 4:30 p.m. today, the fire at our No. 2 Communications Tower in Changsha has been extinguished. No casualties have yet been discovered and communications have not been cut off.”

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Dan Ladden-HallBreaking News Editor

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