Top procuratorate to oversee barn fire probe

BEIJING - China's top procuratorate will supervise an investigation into a barn fire that consumed 1,000 tons of grain in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province last Friday.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate has asked local prosecuting authorities to investigate whether duty-related crimes may have contributed to the fire.

The case has been jointly probed by procurators from the Heilongjiang provincial people's procuratorate, Daqing municipal people's procuratorate and the local procuratorate in Lindian county, where the barn is located.

The barn caught fire Friday afternoon. The fire spread to another 80 barns and required 20 hours of firefighting efforts to extinguish.

Cao Binghan, deputy commander of the local rescue headquarters, said Wednesday that the fire was triggered by a short circuit, adding that it incurred 3 million yuan ($489,000) in direct economic losses.

No casualties were reported.

The China Grain Reserves Corporation (CGRC), which runs the barn, said in a Monday statement that 147,000 tonnes of subsidized grain was in storage at the barn. Local authorities have retrieved 27,000 tonnes of grain thus far.