Shanghai blaze victims in plea over donations

China.org.cn/Shanghai Daily, September 7, 2011

The 28-story building at the intersection of Jiaozhou Road and Yuyao Road in Jing'an District was being renovated when it caught fire at about 2 p.m. November 15, 2010.[File photo]

The Shanghai Daily reports that Victims of a deadly blaze in Shanghai are claiming that a large proportion of donations made in its aftermath has still to be handed over.

The Shanghai Charity Foundation responded yesterday?that more than half of the funds have been distributed. It said that, up to Monday, it had received about 54.6 million yuan in donations, of which some 28.3 million yuan were distributed to the victims. The remainder of the donations would be distributed soon and there would be no fund management fee.

However victims say the Shanghai Charity Foundation and its district branches received more than 44.8 million yuan (US$7 million) in donations, but up to now victims have only received 4.2 million.

Wang Hong and another 20 victims compiled their statistics about donations from media reports. "I believe the actual donations will be even more," Wang said. "We were not able to collect all the stories covering the affair."

The 28-story building at the intersection of Jiaozhou Road and Yuyao Road in Jing'an District was being renovated when it caught fire at about 2 p.m. November 15, 2010, killing 58 people and injuring 71 others. It was estimated that the direct economic losses were put at 158 million yuan.

After the deadly accident, all walks of life, including companies, temples, theaters and individuals made their donations.

The main recipient of donations was the charity foundation and its district branches. Donations also went to the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau and Shanghai Senior Citizens Foundation.

The victims group has written an open letter to the city government, requiring that the donations be handed out.

"The city government established a special work team to deal with the aftermath of the disaster," the group wrote. "And apparently compensation and donation distribution is the duty of the work team."

The foundation said it would disclose the auditing results of the donation distribution at a later date.

(Shanghai Daily contributed to this story)