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China market blaze kills 17 in Guangdong China's deadly shopping blaze 'started by boy, nine'
(about 11 hours later)
Seventeen people were killed when a fire broke out in a wholesale market in southern China, state media say. A blaze at a shopping centre that killed 17 people was started by a nine-year-old boy "playing with a lighter", Chinese police said in a statement.
The fourth floor of the building in Huidong county in Guangdong province was ablaze on Thursday afternoon, local government said. The inferno broke out on the fourth floor of the building in Huizhou in Guangdong province on Thursday afternoon.
It took about six hours for more than 200 firefighters to bring the fire under control. The young suspect has been detained for questioning.
China has a long history of workplace disasters and a poor record on worker safety. Rescue efforts took a number of hours, with four firefighters injured, one of them seriously.
Footage showed an excavator dismantling one wall of the building to allow trapped people to escape, Reuters news agency said. Some 270 firefighters and 45 fire engines were needed to extinguish the flames, police said.
The cause of the fire was under investigation, the Communist Party's propaganda department in Huidong county said, and nine managers of the mall had been detained by police. Footage from the scene showed an excavator dismantling one wall of the building to allow trapped people to escape.
In June 2013, a fire at a poultry slaughterhouse in the north-eastern province of Jilin killed 120 people. Four firefighters were injured during the rescue mission, one seriously.
Poor management was blamed and reports said most of the exits had been blocked, leading to panic and a crush. Police said the flames quickly spread to the whole floor.
Nine managers at the mall were also detained by the authorities.
China has a dismal industrial safety record as some property and business owners evade regulations to save money and pay off corrupt officials to look the other way.
A fire at a poultry plant in the north-east of the country killed 119 people in 2013.
Reports at the time said that managers had locked doors inside the factory to prevent workers from going to the toilet, leading to the high death toll.