A fire in a department store in central China on Christmas Day killed at least 309 people, most of them Christmas revellers trapped in a crowded disco on the building's fourth floor, officials said yesterday.
The fire, in the centre of the Luoyang, began during the evening in the basement of the Dongdu Commercial building, which was being renovated at the time.
It quickly engulfed the entire four-storey structure in smoke and flames, an official in the city government's information office said.
Most of the victims suffocated. The casualties included dancers and building workers involved in the renovations.
In addition to the 309 dead, seven were injured and sent to local hospitals, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
At least 200 people were in the fourth-floor disco and construction workers were on the second and third floors when the fire started.
The disco was privately run, and illegal, officials said.
State media reported that 60 people escaped from the building during the fire.
Henan television showed flames shooting out of smashed windows on the building's first floor. Firefighters sprayed the glass front of the building, which remained largely intact.
One woman was shown hanging out of a window waiting to be rescued.
Firefighters plucked some people, children among them, from the upper floors using a platform mounted on a crane.
Shortly after the fire broke out at around 9.30pm, the dance hall erupted in chaos, the Henan Daily, the provincial government's newspaper, reported.
Firefighters tried to enter the disco but retreated before the thick smoke, unable to discover how many people were inside.
One partygoer, a Mrs Wang - her face black with soot, her hands bloody - said she and five or six others jumped to safety from a balcony.
She did not know if her husband had escaped.
An employee at a cinema across the street said smoke poured from the top and back of the building.
She said that firefighters and police officers were searching the building yesterday, keeping the area cordoned off.
About 750 police and firefighters rushed to the scene and put out the fire within three hours, the Luoyang Evening News said.
The disco was crowded with people attending a Christmas party, according to local media and officials.
Although Christmas is not a holiday in officially atheistic China, it has become a fashionable occasion for parties among the younger urban Chinese.
Henan provincial television said the construction work might have been to blame for the fire, but a government official said only that the cause was under investigation.
Construction materials may have blocked escape routes, contributing to the disaster, and vendors' stalls around the building also hampered rescue efforts.
Twenty years of rapid economic growth has left China with spotty safety regulations and lax enforcement, and fires and building collapses are common.
Henan - China's most populous province - came under criticism in March when 74 people died in a fire in a cinema in Jiaozuo city.
Monday's fire, however, may be China's worst in six years. On December 8 1994, a fire killed 385 people - most of them children - at a theatre in the far western region of Xinjiang. Only one exit door was unlocked when the fire occurred.
In a sign of official concern, Beijing sent a vice-minister, Shi Wanpeng, to Luoyang yesterday to assess the disaster and the local government's response.
The fire occurred just before the Lunar New Year, China's biggest holiday, which this year falls on January 24: a time when Chinese leaders routinely order greater vigilance against accidents. A public security ministery directive yesterday ordered checks on public buildings.
AP