Cargo Ship Fire in Eastern China Kills 25

Twenty-five people were killed on Thursday after a fire broke out on a cargo ship that was docked in Qingdao, China, state media outlets reported.

The fire broke out at around 11:15 a.m. local time on a foreign-flagged ship that was undergoing maintenance, according to CCTV, China’s state broadcaster. The vessel was docked in a shipyard owned by Qingdao Beihai Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of a state-owned conglomerate.

Qingdao, in Shandong Province in eastern China, is a high-volume trade hub that has one of the busiest ports in the world and is also home to one of the country’s most strategically important naval bases.

The ship had 42 people onboard at the time of the blaze, which was extinguished several hours later and whose cause remained unclear. Twelve people were safely evacuated and five injured people were taken to hospital where they were in a stable condition, according to state media.

The fire prompted a large-scale emergency response at the shipyard, where China’s leader, Xi Jinping, called for a prompt investigation into its cause.

Chinese state media identified the vessel as the Ocean Melody. According to Marine Traffic, a ship tracking platform, a Liberian-flagged vessel with the same name had been docked in Qingdao for at least 10 days.