Shocking footage has emerged of the moment a traditional Chinese torch festival exploded into chaos, leaving 16 people with burns after a bucket of flammable liquid was knocked over in a crowded field.
The clip, filmed on a grassy hillside in Xuanwei, Yunnan province, on the evening of 6 August, shows hundreds of villagers and visitors holding blazing torches under a dark sky. Then comes a sudden dull thud. A fireball rips through the crowd. People scream and scatter. Some drop to the ground and roll as flames catch their clothes. Others rush in to beat the fire out with their hands.
Local officials later confirmed that residents of the Wusa villagers’ group in Jianwen village, Lefeng township, were lighting torches for the Torch Festival when a plastic container of accelerant tipped over and ignited. Sixteen people suffered burns of varying severity. All were taken to hospital and reported to be in a stable condition.
The Torch Festival is one of the most important annual events for the Yi people and other ethnic groups in southwest China. Families gather after dark, light torches and sometimes leap over fires to pray for good harvests, drive away pests and welcome good fortune. In this case, the celebration was held on the Wusa grassland, a wide open area of more than 12,000 acres.
Video circulating online captures the panic in raw detail: torches still burning in people’s hands as they run, bright flames licking across the grass, and bystanders shouting while others try to help those who have fallen. A public address system can be heard later telling people to leave the area and stop gathering around the injured.
Authorities in Xuanwei said they activated an emergency plan at once, sending health, emergency, and police teams to treat the wounded and restore order. Follow-up work was described as proceeding in an orderly fashion.
The footage has drawn grim comments from viewers who noted how quickly a night of tradition turned dangerous. Similar accidents have been reported at Torch Festival events in previous years, often linked to the use of flammable liquids to keep the flames high. This time the official account was brief and focused on the medical response.
Sixteen people went to hospital after what was meant to be a night of light and celebration. The video makes clear how little time there was between the tipped bucket and the fireball that tore through the crowd.
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