More than 300 people were killed in central China when fire swept through a fourth-floor nightclub packed with teenagers celebrating Christmas, officials and witnesses said yesterday.
Up to 2,000 onlookers gathered near the Dongdu Commercial Building in the city of Luoyang last night, almost a full day after the blaze, but they were kept back by police cordons.
Witnesses said the disco was packed with clubbers who panicked when they realised there was no escape.
Some people broke open windows and threw themselves down six floors onto safety mats laid out by firemen.
Officials put the death toll at 309 by midday yesterday.
The Xinhua news agency had earlier reported several dozen people injured.
Of the 309 dead, 135 were men and 174 women, a news report said. Most of the victims died of smoke inhalation.
A group of builders on the second and third floors, who were putting the finishing touches to a refurbished supermarket, were also killed.
The blaze started at about 9:30 p.m. (1.30 p.m. Irish time) on Christmas night, when the nightclub was packed.
After 90 minutes the fire had spread from the basement up to the second floor, engulfing the entire building in thick clouds of black smoke that billowed from windows shattered by the heat.
Panicking partygoers in the nightclub could be seen refusing to risk jumping to the ground.
Television footage showed firefighters battling the blaze, but it appeared that ladders were not long enough to reach the upper floors.
Locals confirmed that the fire had begun in the basement of the building. The privately managed nightclub is located in an old quarter of Luoyang, an ancient capital of China.
The old, state-run commercial building was recently transferred to private groups, with the supermarket partially backed by Taiwanese investors, locals said.
Witnesses nearly all linked the blaze to the renovation of the supermarket.
The fire was one of the worst in recent memory in China.
In December 1994, 324 people, 288 of them children, were killed in a fire in a cinema in Karamay, northwestern China, while 234 died in a nightclub in Fuxin, Liaoning province, in November of the same year.