1,100 karaoke parlors, bars suspended in Hanoi over fire safety violations

At a Monday conference on fire safety held by the Hanoi People's Committee, Pham Trung Hieu, head of the Firefighting and Rescue Office of Hanoi Police Department, said that there are over 1,500 karaoke parlors, bars and dance clubs in the city, the Cong An Nhan Dan newspaper reported.

Following the past two months of checking facilities in the city for fire safety measures, Hanoi suspended over 1,100 of them.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in September requested the Ministry of Public Security and other related agencies to conduct fire safety inspections, focusing on karaoke parlors, crowded enterprises and apartment buildings.

The request came after a deadly fire at a karaoke parlor in Thuan An Town of Binh Duong Province killed 32 people on September 6, and over a month after three firefighters died trying to put out a fire at a karaoke parlor in Hanoi's Cau Giay District. In 2016, another karaoke fire in Cau Giay killed 13 people.

Between 2017 and 2021, more than 17,000 fires occurred in Vietnam, killing 433 people and injuring 790 others, causing losses exceeding VND7 trillion ($297 million) and damaging more than 7,500 hectares of forests, official data revealed.