Eleven people are dead after a karaoke hall fire in Chengde, north China's Hebei Province, early on Wednesday.

The blaze broke out at about 4:30 AM in the Blue Sky foot massage parlor on the ground floor of a two-storey building known as Gedu Karaoke Hall, according to the county government.

The parlor was not open for business at the time but the owner and his staff were sleeping in the residential quarters on the second floor.

The male owner and ten masseuses were killed. Two others were rescued.

A local pedlar alerted the police at 4:47 AM after he saw smoke pouring out from all sides of the building. The fire was extinguished at about 5:10 AM.

Photographs posted on the Internet show the entrance of the building to be scorched and the windows of the first floor broken.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation and the local Public Security Bureau has not released any further details.

The local government will hold an emergency conference in the afternoon in an effort to launch a large-scale work safety inspection.

(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2007)