Zhang Renliang (张仁良), the former Jing'an district chief who was sacked last year in the wake of the devastating 2010 fire that ravaged an apartment building, killing 58 and injuring 71, has been given a political resurrection with his new appointment as deputy party secretary of Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture. Zhang's new job comes just seven months after he was sacked from Jingan district, along with dozens of other officials that were either replaced, punished or jailed. more ›

It's hard to believe that a year has already passed since the massive Jing'an fire on November 15th, 2010, that left 58 dead and over 70 injured. more ›

In Cafetique, Shanghaiist reviews coffee shops and cafes around Shanghai that provide the two things our writers need most in life: caffeine and wireless internet. How does your neighborhood hangout spot stack up? more ›

26 have been formally indicted for their roles in the more ›

Check out this nifty machine bought recently by the fire department of Luoyang in Henan province. It's a little monster that Shanghai should have had to fight against that catastrophic Jingan fire late last year. Built especially to fight high-rise fires, the RMB3 million ($456,000) jet-powered water cannon can spew up to 4 tonnes of water per minute at a range of 50 metres. If the city had invested in this little machine ahead of time, imagine how many more lives we would have been able to save? more ›

Touching scenes you won't find anywhere on Chinese television or even on the internet. Videos like this one and many more of the city's outpouring of grief have been deleted on Tudou, Youku and other video-sharing sites. more ›

In the days after the Jing'an fire, there's been a great deal of confusion over the incident: the cause, why it spread so fast, the number of people missing or hurt, but we've had the most conflicting reports over how many lives were lost. In our last post about the fire, we reported that the death toll had risen to 79, relying on a Guardian article and an AP press report for that figure, but it is incorrect. It seems that when news came out that 26 bodies had their identities confirmed via DNA testing, several media mistook that to be an additional 26 deaths confirmed. Those 26 confirmed identities are part of the 53 already accounted for. more ›

We've been watching closely as the horrible events of Monday's fire unfolded but now you can do something to help. BEAN is hosting a special fundraiser at Kaiba to help the victims of the devastating Jiaozhou Lu fire which led to a tragic 53 deaths, inflicted numerous injuries and displaced hundreds more. All proceeds from the drinks event will go directly to the Shanghai Red Cross Jiaozhou Lu fund. more ›

Youku has created a site covering Monday's fire and the aftermath. Unfortunately, the site appears to have become more like an official media mouthpiece: the only videos being uploaded to the page are either news broadcasts or home videos from a distance, most of them simply reshuffling the same footage. We found that almost any Youku video uploaded by eye witnesses has been removed (when searching for 'Shanghai Fire' - 上海大火 - all top results failed to load properly.) Anyway, here are a few clips covering different angles of the day:
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As the search continues for missing people, more and more tales of survival are making their way to the surface. There was at least one happy ending yesterday reported by Xinmin which tells of the amazing rescue of an extremely elderly couple. more ›

We're sure that many of you are deeply concerned about the well-being of loved ones here. So far no news has surfaced that there were any expatriates living in the building. The quarters served as housing for mainly retired teachers and pensioners who taught in schools in the Jing'an area. No official list of dead and missing have been released yet. The one shot we have of a missing persons list shows only Chinese names and the ages listed are almost all 65 years and above. more ›

Even today, local news coverage on the fire is few and far between. Only a handful of newspapers are reporting it on their front pages leading outraged Shanghai residents to suspect a partial media blackout and some to call it a "massive media fail." Meanwhile, the Propaganda Department is said to have issued an order for publications to stop putting up the fire as a headline story, to delete all anti-government comments and to use only Xinhua reports. more ›

A summary of the facts so far: The 28-storey apartment building was located at the intersection of Jiaozhou Road and Yuyao Road in the Jing'an district. Containing around 500 apartments, it served mainly as housing for retired teachers and was undergoing some renovations when welding sparks caused the scaffolding catch fire at approximately 2:15pm. The fire spread from the scaffolding to the building itself, completely engulfing the high rise in flames. more ›

Video of scenes from the streets near yesterday's deadly high-rise fire submitted by Roberto Gianstefani of Flatmind. more ›

The official death toll from yesterday's tragic fire in Shanghai is now 53. Wikipedia is tracking developments, and some are suggesting a partial media blackout is in effect. Find continuing Shanghaiist coverage of the fire here. more ›

This is why you've been hearing sirens this afternoon. A terrible fire has broken out in an apartment block called the Jiaozhou Building (胶州大厦) at 707 728 Jiaozhou Lu Building 1, near the corner of Yuyao Lu in Jing'an. The huge fire is reportedly 10 stories high and the blaze started with the scaffolding. Ambulances have already been called to the scene but photos show there are trapped workers in the building. We'll be following this story closely as more details unfold. Please send tips to tips@shanghaiist.com. more ›

SmartShanghai informs us that September not only brings to Shanghai its second Restaurant Week, but actually its second Cuisine Festival as well! And both are striving to be much better than last year. more ›

Sure, you might manage to prevent yourself from getting AIDS by using the condoms dispensed by this machine, but you might end up contracting hepatitis or gangrene instead! more ›

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here). more ›

This Saturday, Newman Tours will be launching Shanghai’s first ever ghost tour. Earlier this month, we went along under a black sky (or as close as we can get in Shanghai) to get the macabre scoop. more ›

It was 8pm on a Thursday night and we were dying for a place that would give us a buzz to last into the weekend - yes, we're alcoholics like that. Luckily, located conveniently on Fumin Lu and Julu Lu was the prescription for our needs: Dr. Wine. more ›

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here). more ›

From Tai Kang Lu to M50 and beyond, Shanghai is abuzz with creative parks and hubs. One of the most recent to spring up, 800SHOW, is a one-time steel factory spanning 20,000 sqm in the heart of Jing'an District. This week, we caught up with logon, the architectural firm behind the renovations, to get the inside scoop on 800SHOW and understand this interesting side of Shanghai’s never-ending urban development. more ›

Yeeha used to be a great place to go (at least for drinks, if not food). They had cheap beers, they had friendly service, and they had a frickin' awesome mechanical bull. Then something changed hands and the beers got more expensive, the service more apathetic, and the mechanical bull disappeared. And now so has the rest of the restaurant, to the surprise, it seems, of many of its employees. China Daily has the scoop about how much the restaurant (which incidentally doesn't even belong in any way to Yao, except that his friend started it) owes the many many people it hasn't paid in months. We're just disappointed that whoever owned the place didn't go back to making Yeeha worthy of the Yao name. more ›

If you're feeling warm and generous, there's multiple chances to give back to the community this week, be it through flea market shopping, beer drinking, or wine tasting. After you stimulate the social economy a bit, indulge your international side with writers from Ireland, a comedian from New Zealand, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. more ›

In Shanghai there are two types of Italian restaurants that really should be judged separately from each other. There are the ones with actual Europeans somewhere at the helm, which feature different primi and secondi piattis, huge wine lists and tend to leave you about 500RMB lighter (per person) at the end of the night. Then there are the ones not run by Europeans, with dishes that are just... different. Not to knock different, it's the same way Chinese dishes in Italy taste different, even if they're tasty. Aura is one of the latter. more ›

It is hard to miss the new Chill café, located at the Ritz Carlton Plaza on Nanjing Xi Lu. more ›

Tucked away behind a steel gate on Shan Xi Nan Lu near Julu Lu is a charming little shop specializing in goods for the type of man who'd go to a magazine rack, pass by the FHM and pick up a Complex instead. more ›

2012 could be your special year. Construction began yesterday on metro Line 12, which will connect Minhang district with northern Pudong, passing through Xuhui, Luwan, Jing'an, Zhabei, Hongkou and Yangpu along the way. Most eye-popping line: "Nineteen stations on Line 12 will connect with 16 other Metro lines." Line 19 (still in planning stage) being one of them. It doesn't seem too long ago that there were only two metro lines and there would be a mad dash for open seats at Shanghai Railway Station, because that is where Line 1 began. It doesn't seem too long ago, because it wasn't. By 2012, Shanghai is supposed to have 13 metro lines covering 500 kilometers. [Shanghai Daily] more ›