Chinese police on Monday closed the road which runs through Beijing's sensitive Tiananmen Square, the site of 1989 pro-democracy protests that were bloodily suppressed by the government, and evacuated the area following a fire, a Reuters witness said. The Communist Party's official People's Daily said on its website that a car had caught fire. It provided no other details. Beijing police, reached by telephone, said they had no information. The Beijing government, also reached by telephone, said it did not know what had happened. The Reuters witness said he saw fire engines, an ambulance and numerous police cars heading in the direction of the fire, which sent a plume of black smoke into the sky.
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)