Shanghai Daily news

A paralyzed man who was over age 70 died in a fire in his Putuo District apartment early yesterday.

The man, who was in the habit of smoking before he went to sleep, apparently failed to extinguish his cigarette when he went to bed about 7pm in his ground-floor flat in the Beixang resident complex on Zhongjiang Road, authorities said. A smouldering butt started a fire in the man's cotton bedclothes at about 3am, his neighbors said. His son, who was sleeping in an adjoining bedroom, woke up to heavy smoke and called the fire command center, authorities said.