Beijing closes all cyber cafes

One witness said burglar bars on the windows of a second-story Internet cafe kept people from escaping the blaze

BEIJING, China -- The mayor of Beijing has closed down the city's booming Internet cafes until the government improves safety standards following a fire which killed 24 people early Sunday.

The crackdown comes as police order the arrest of the owner of the unlicensed cyber cafe after it was revealed customers were trapped inside by iron bars over the windows.

Police are currently searching for the owner.

There are around 2,400 cyber cafes in the Chinese capital, of which perhaps only 200 would meet all safety standards, CNN's Jaime Florcruz reports.

The move will affect students in particular, many of whom rely on the cafes to access global information necessary for their studies.

Mayor Liu Qi ordered the city's cyber cafes closed while government departments draws up new regulations, Xinhua said.

Cafes that meet safety and other standards will be allowed to reapply for licenses while those found lacking will be closed permanently and their property confiscated, it quoted him as saying.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO CNN's Jaime Florcruz reports on the aftermath of a fire that killed 24 people in a Beijing Internet cafe. Play video   MORE STORIES Tragedy could spark stiffer net laws    AUDIO Internet cafe inspections began days before the fire. CNN's Jaime Florcruz reports 2.38 MB / 1 min 53 secs WAV sound   FOCUS China: Safety last?     CNN.com Asia More news from our Asia edition

Internet cafes, many open 24 hours, are immensely popular in China, which says it has 33.7 million Internet users but where many families can't afford to buy a computer.

The biggest cafes, especially near universities, have hundreds of terminals.

The cafe which caught fire -- called Lanjisu -- is located in Haidian, a northern Beijing suburb frequented by students attending the area's many universities.

Firefighters were able to put out the blaze in about an hour.

An investigation into the cause of the fire was under way, officials told Xinhua.

A witness said iron window bars trapped victims inside.

Another said all the windows in the cafe were closed and ventilation was "terrible".

Apart from the 24 people who perished, another 13 people were injured in the fire, Xinhua said.

Sunday's blaze was Beijing's deadliest since 1949, when the communist People's Republic of China was founded, the agency said.

A neighbor said he was awakened by screams and saw smoke pouring from windows of the cafe, on the second floor of a two-story cement building.

Neighbors helped one person escape, but iron bars over the windows prevented others from getting out, he said.

"There were people shouting 'Help me, help me,"' said the man, who gave only his surname, Liu.

Neighbors later pried the bars off one window and pulled out several victims who appeared to be dead, Liu said.

He said firefighters took only five minutes to extinguish the fire, which seemed to be at its strongest near the front of the cafe.

Flames rise from an Internet cafe in Beijing's university district early Sunday.

Liu said the cafe had operated 24 hours a day and drew large numbers of students by offering cheaper Internet access rates late at night. Liu and other witnesses said the cafe had room for more than 40 customers.

On Sunday morning, the area had been cordoned off and police could be seen inside filming and turning over debris. Burn marks ringed shattered windows and a striped blanket hung from one window.

Haidian, in Beijing's northwest, is the site of Beijing University and Tsinghua University, two of China's most prestigious schools.

The area has a large student population and is the center of China's growing computer and high-technology industries.

Fatal fires are common in China, where operators of bars, movie theaters, Internet cafes and other businesses often ignore safety rules or fail to provide emergency exits.

But they are less frequent in Beijing, the capital, where regulations are more rigorously enforced.

In December 2000, a fire at a discotheque in the central city of Luoyang killed 309 people. Investigators blamed the high death toll on locked emergency exits.

Twenty-three people held responsible were sentenced to prison terms of up to 13 years.