Recent self-immolation tragedies

On Aug 22, 2003, Weng Biao, a resident of Nanjing, burned himself to death using gasoline inside a local government office after his home was forcibly demolished when he was not in. A worker in the office was severely injured in the inferno.

On Apr 3, 2008, He Tongquan, a resident of Quanzhou, Fujian province, used gasoline to set himself ablaze after his house was marked for demolition. Earlier, repeated negotiations for compensation had failed to reach any agreement. Medics diagnosed that 97 percent of his body was burned.

On Feb 13 this year, a woman in Chifeng, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, set herself on fire because she was dissatisfied with the terms of compensation offered for her shop. She was severely burned.