No one reported missing in shopping mall fire in N China

Relatives of the 10 victims in a shopping mall fire last week in Jixian county of north China's port city of Tianjin had confirmed the bodies and no one had been reported missing, local police said late Friday.

The blaze engulfed the five-story Laide Shopping Mall in the afternoon of June 30, also leaving 16 people slightly injured, with most of them having been discharged from hospital, doctors with of Jixian County People's Hospital said.

"There was a power cut in the mall at that moment, and someone was calling us to leave for the first floor, so we ran downstairs," said He Li, one of the injured saleswoman in the blaze, adding that she was on the fifth floor when the fire broke out, and about a dozen saleswomen and three customers were there.

Wang Huiying, another injured saleswoman at the fifth floor, said about a dozen people rushed to the second floor but dense smoke from the first floor engulfed to the second one, and they had to break the windows and escape through ladders.

"The firefighters have arrived and people on the third floor have gotten out with the help of them before us," Wang said.

Li Ming, an official of public security fire department of Tianjin, said firefighters received a report of the fire at 3:41 p.m. on June 30, and the first group of firefighters arrived at the scene at 3:49.

Firemen rescued 31 people through fire ladders and removed some trapped people to the flat roof of the mall.

"From 6:15 p.m., 10 bodies of the deceased were retrieved in succession," Li said, adding that firemen then searched the whole shopping mall for another four rounds and didn't find anyone.

Among the victims, no one fell to death from the building, confirmed Li Jidong, an assistant to the director of the Jixian hospital.

The 10 victims were all female residents of Jixian, aged between 25 and 44, according to a statement issued by the Tianjin municipal government's information office.

Six were saleswomen, two were cashiers, one was a businesswoman of a home textiles store and one was a customer, it said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.