Sunday 27 November 2022 11:56 PM How Covid revolt swept across China: Hundreds demand Communist leader steps ... trends now

The blaze broke out in a residential high-rise building in Urumqi, a city in western China infamous for the repression of Uighur citizens and where the temperatures have dropped below freezing after dark.

The fire is thought to have begun with a faulty electric socket in a bedroom on the 15th floor, before spreading rapidly to engulf the flats on higher levels in a hell of burning flames, thick smoke and toxic fumes.

Shockingly, the homes were filled with families enduring their third month of Covid lockdown, who found themselves trapped in a blazing inferno because of the brutal health restrictions of a dictatorial regime.

Videos on social media show arcs of water from fire trucks falling short of the building as rescue teams were stymied by pandemic control barriers and parked cars thought to have been abandoned by drivers forced into quarantine.

Recordings play the screams from dying people trapped in homes and desperate pleas for help from families facing suffocation. They detail the anguish of neighbours unable to help, efforts to shove aside cars impeding fire crews and even the crude wires reportedly wrapped around door handles to stop people leaving residences.

Ten people, including young children, were confirmed to have died, with nine others injured – although rumours are swirling around Chinese social media that the true number of fatalities might be more than four times higher.

Now these horrific deaths have ignited extraordinary protests in at least eight other Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, in the most daring explosion of defiance against the repressive Communist regime for many years.

It is highly unusual for people to publicly vent anger at Communist Party leaders in China, where direct government criticism can result in harsh penalties, including years in prison.

But the demonstrators are challenging president Xi Jinping's pig-headed determination to continue imposing strict 'Zero Covid' lockdown policies on the country that gave birth to the pandemic.

The protests expose the growing mood of frustration after almost three years of restrictions in the only major country in the world still fighting Covid using the outdated weapons of mass lockdowns and regular testing.

Some bold protesters are even calling for the removal of their all-powerful president only a month after Xi won his third term as party head, which secured his status as China's most dominant leader since Chairman Mao.

In the financial hub of Shanghai, police responded with beatings and pepper spray after young activists chanted slogans such as 'Xi Jinping, step down, Communist Party, step down' alongside loud demands to 'Unlock Xinjiang, unlock China'.

The big question, as outrage grows on social media and protests flare up reportedly on at least 50 university campuses, is whether mounting frustration over Xi's tough Covid policies might now spark a serious challenge to his ultra-autocratic regime.

Certainly, they present significant rebuke to an egotistical leader who has hailed his approach to Covid as proof of the superiority of China's system of government after the initial bungles and cover-up that unleashed a pandemic on the planet.

The protests flared up first in Urumqi, where many of the four million residents have been unable to leave their homes since early August. Citizens wearing face masks confronted officials, pushed back a barrier protected by police and shouted slogans demanding an end to lockdowns.

'Everyone thinks that Chinese people are afraid to come out and protest, that they don't have any courage,' said one protester.

'I also thought this way. But then when I went there, I found that the environment was such that everyone was very brave.'

The authorities hastily apologised, promised an investigation and pledged to soften local restrictions, although they denied their actions led to the inferno deaths. One fire service official

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