A fire broke out on November 15 in a Shanghai highrise residential building during renovation had killed 58 people. The accident sounds the alarm of substandard fire safety design in highrise buildings in mainland cities.

     Experts point out that this is particular alarming because there are many highrise and super highrise buildings are either under planning or construction all over China.

     According to the latest statistics, there are 162,000 highrise buildings in China and approximately more than 1,500 of them are over 100 metres tall.

     In China, fire hazard during construction accounts for more than 85% of the total fire accidents in highrise buildings. Officials said buildings which are more than 50 metres tall are considered high risk in fire hazard. It is because fire escape ladders from fire engines will be out of reach at that height. It is concluded that highrise buildings have to adopt more advanced fire protection design and installations.

     Another area of high risk in tall buildings is the elevator. In Guangzhou, ¡®black box¡¯-- remote monitoring equipment is being introduced. The system will be self-activated if an accident occurred. Distress signals will be sent out automatically to the control centre to speed up rescuer work. More than 2,000 elevators will be installed with the 'black box' in Guangzhou by the end of this year. It is anticipated that the exercise will be extended to cover more buildings in the future.