Police in Shenzhen, a boom city in south China's Guangdong Province, have detained the owner of a recycle materials venture for a fire that killed 15 people late last month.

The owner, identified as Chen Jinlong, served as legal representative of Longfei Recycle Materials Co. Ltd based in Shannan district of Shenzhen. The deadly fire was said to have been caused by short-circuits of the overburdened electrical wires in production, said a source from the security and fire control department of Shenzhen city.

According to the source, Longfei company had three-rotating shifts, with the machines being operated around the clock, in pursuit of maximum profits.

While the night shift workers were still at the machines early on Feb 27, the electrical wires that supplied power to the plastics compressors, which were not properly sealed with a cover, melted, broke and gave forth sparks that fell onto heaps of plastic products and set the plastics afire at around 4 a.m. that day, producing toxic gas.

A total of 15 other workers sleeping in two lofts inside the workshop were killed. Only workers who were on duty when the fire broke out, and three drivers who stayed up late playing mahjong, escaped the fire.

The workers who were killed in the fire were all cremated, and their relatives were compensated an undisclosed amount by the local government and the company. Two of the three people who were injured in the fire were discharged from the hospital, and the third is still undergoing treatment.

(Xinhua News Agency, March 10, 2008)