Mandarin Royal Hotel Burns

The Mandarin Royal Hotel, a 44-storey luxury hotel in the center of Beijing burned completely yesterday in a massive fire during the final celebrations for the Chinese New Year.

The luxury hotel has been under construction for 7 years and was due to open later this year.

There are some suggestions that a firework may have started the blaze.

“Xinhua reported that Beijing residents were supposed to stop selling and lighting fireworks by midnight.

iReporter de Villeneuve said she suspects many people in the city were trying to use whatever remaining fireworks they had before the deadline.”