In a building in Changsha, Hunan Province, several newly established businesses suffered significant losses due to a casually discarded cigarette butt.
According to a report from the “Yangcheng Evening News,” on June 22, Mr. Yang from Wuhan sought help from the media, revealing that multiple new businesses in the Binjiang International Office Building suffered heavy losses due to a single cigarette butt.
Mr. Yang explained that his company opened on June 9, with several other businesses on the same floor also opening around the same time. On the morning of June 13, the company received a notice from the property management, informing them that a sudden burst pipe in the fire sprinkler system caused extensive water leakage, leading to severe water damage in four elevators, rendering them inoperable. The property management had taken emergency measures on the evening of the 12th by using sandbags to block the water.
“It was a Saturday (the 13th), and we saw the property management message in our group chat saying that the water hadn’t entered the units. We went to check in the afternoon and found that the carpets and cabinets were all ruined,” Mr. Yang said. It was later revealed to them by the property management that someone had casually discarded a cigarette butt in front of the entrance after coming out of the adjacent mahjong room late at night, igniting a cardboard box and triggering the sprinkler system to release a large volume of water into the offices.
The surveillance video provided by Mr. Yang showed that the incident occurred around 2:30 a.m. In the footage, four men emerged from the mahjong room, with one of them smoking while walking. That person then bent down at the entrance but the camera did not capture his subsequent actions; another man turned around to talk to him. About 20 minutes later, property personnel carrying fire extinguishers headed towards the direction of the mahjong room and returned shortly after.
Photos from the scene depicted extensive charred marks on the wooden wall panels outside the mahjong room, reaching a height close to that of a person, with visible smoke and sprinkler water residue on the ceiling.
Mr. Yang believed that the individual responsible should be held accountable for compensation. Additionally, he pointed out the property management’s negligence, including the long-term accumulation of combustible materials like cardboard boxes in the corridors, insufficient fire safety measures in places like the mahjong room, and the lack of an emergency plan for dealing with sprinkler water.
The report mentioned that on June 22, repairs on the burnt wall panels had been completed at the site, but smoke marks and water blisters were still visible on the ceiling and wall corners. Inside a neighboring company next to the mahjong room, a man was seen inspecting damaged carpets. When approached for an interview, the individual refused to respond and told surrounding businesses not to let the reporter in.
In another encounter with a different company, the man continued to film the reporter with his phone, and several men and women were called in to block the interview, with claims that “this whole side is my property.”
The property staff explained that the man who obstructed the interview was the landlord of several commercial spaces, including the mahjong room.
The property management company stated that as the party at fault currently refused to take responsibility for compensation, there was still no clear resolution for the related losses.
Following the exposure of the incident, many netizens expressed that it was truly an “unnecessary disaster” for multiple companies on the same floor to experience flooding shortly after completing their renovations.