Two hours after the blaze on the rooftop of Sizhou Hotel had been extinguished, the police finally completed their screening of all survivors. Since Sizhou Hotel had been surrounded by the police when the incident occurred, there had been no other way out. Thus, subtracting the survivors from those who had entered the hotel produced the casualty list from the fire.
In the end, the police concluded that all four members of the Special Action Team and all four members of the Emergency Response Squad, including Zhang Heng, had perished in the flames. Besides them, all guests on the twelfth floor and some guests on the eleventh, thirteenth, and fourteenth floors had also died in the fire.
The exact death toll was still being compiled. Preliminary estimates put the number of dead at more than sixty. Some bodies might never be found, while others would be too badly damaged to identify even if they were recovered, leaving DNA testing as the only way to confirm their identities.
As soon as the newspapers received the news, they dispatched reporters to the scene. This was likely the largest fire since New Shanghai 0297 had been built. After an accident, the public generally wanted someone to bear responsibility. In this case, the arsonist's identity remained unknown, but one party was certainly unable to escape blame: the fire protection system of the Second Layer. For some reason, the normally efficient fire brigade had not arrived until the blaze had been burning for nearly an hour.
As a result, many media outlets had already come up with headlines for the next day questioning the fire protection system. But that was a matter for later. Another hour passed before the station finally lifted its lockdown, and the Central Shuttle resumed normal operations.
Using a forged citizen