The blaze that killed 33 people in Harbin was ignited when a restaurant employee added kerosene to a stove without extinguishing the flame first, state media said yesterday.
A local police officer confirmed that human error when handling a kerosene stove had been identified as the cause of the fatal fire at the restaurant, called the Tiantan Hotel, on Saturday.
He said no arrest had been made so far, although it was certain that the owner and some employees would be held responsible for the blaze.
'We still have to decide how many people should be detained,' he said.
The Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolitan News quoted Wang Yan, 19, a waitress who was injured when she grabbed the two-year-old daughter of a customer and jumped out of a window to safety, as saying that the kerosene stove had been placed in the middle of the lobby to warm the premises.
The report said all the victims had died after inhaling carbon monoxide given off by the burning kerosene.