At least 16 killed in massive fire at China shopping mall

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

At least 16 people were killed as a massive blaze tore through a shopping centre in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan.

The fire broke out in a 14-storey commercial building in the high-tech zone city of Zigong, located 1,900km from capital Beijing. The city is home to about 2.5 million people.

Firefighters responded to an emergency call shortly after 6pm on Tuesday at the building and pulled around 75 people to safety, state news agency Xinhua reported. The rescue operation continued overnight and ended at 3am (local time).

It was not immediately known what caused the fire or how many people were in the building when the fire broke out but preliminary investigation showed the fire erupted was due to construction operations.

The building houses a department store, offices, restaurants and a movie theater.

Videos showed clouds of thick black smoke coming out of windows from the building’s lower levels and engulfing the entire building as they rose to the sky.

Fire department authorities have reportedly called on the public to "not believe or amplify rumours" about the blaze. China's Ministry of Emergency Management has dispatched a team of experts to Sichuan for an investigation.

Fire hazards remain a problem in China, which reported 947 fire fatalities in this year’s first several months ending on 20 May, up 19 per cent from the same period of the previous year, Li Wanfeng, a spokesperson for the National Fire and Rescue Administration, told the Associated Press.

He said the number of fires in public places such as hotels and restaurants rose 40 per cent and that the most common causes were malfunctioning in electrical or gas lines and carelessness.

In January, a fire killed 39 people in a commercial building in the southeastern Chinese province of Jiangxi. It was caused by unauthorized welding in the basement.

Another 15 people were killed in a residential building in the eastern city of Nanjing in February, after an attached parking lot that had electric bikes caught fire.