Safety checks after China disco fire

Investigators try to establish the cause of the fire

The Chinese authorities have called for stringent safety measures in public buildings over the winter holiday period following Monday night's fire in the city of Luoyang.

The Public Security Ministry issued instructions to local governments to "spare no efforts to ensure safety" and ordered checks of hotels, shopping centres, hospitals and other public venues.

Unlicensed and unsafe dance halls should be shut down, the ministry added.

More than 300 people were killed in the Luoyang fire, which gutted a building where Christmas partygoers were packed into an unlicensed disco on the top floor.

China's leaders are worried about a possible repetition of the tragedy at New Year or at the Lunar New Year, to be celebrated on 24-26 January.

Horror and panic

The instructions were prompted by serious safety concerns arising from the Luoyang fire.

When fire broke out, the whole dance hall was suddenly thrown into chaos

Survivor

The dance hall was situated on the top floor of the building, the exits of which were said to be blocked by boxes of merchandise.

Eyewitness reports spoke of horrendous scenes in the disco as dancers realised they could not escape and began to panic.

Safety mats

The official Xinhua news agency said the fire had broken out at 2135 (1335 GMT) on Monday and was extinguished in the early hours of Tuesday.

Crowds gathered at the scene of the fire

It put the death toll at 309; among the dead were 135 males and 174 females.

One partygoer, her face covered in smoke, said she and five or six others jumped to safety, but she did not know if her husband had escaped.

Television reports showed others refusing to leap down to the safety mats laid out by firefighters.

The agency quoted local officials as saying that all the deaths were the results of suffocation - the result of smoke billowing from the lower floors.

Christmas is not a holiday in China, but some young people celebrate it anyway.

Billowing smoke

Investigators have been sifting through the wreckage at the scene of the fire to try to establish its cause.

Xinhua reported that several people believed to be responsible for the fire had been arrested.

The shopping centre had been undergoing refurbishment, and one theory is that the fire was caused by the construction work.

It is believed to have started in the basement of the building, and then spread upwards.

After an hour and a half, it had engulfed the upper storeys and black smoke was billowing from windows shattered by the heat.

Firefighters who attempted to enter the disco were forced to turn back because of the smoke.

Luoyang is an ancient city on the Yellow River in the province of Henan, which has undergone rapid growth in recent years.

The fire tragedy was China's worst since December 1994, when 324 people, most of them children, were killed in a concert hall in the western region of Xinjiang.