The picture shows heavy smoke rising to the sky when a blaze broke out at a plastic packaging factory on Thursday, July 17, 2008 in Shanghai. [Photo: chinanews.com]

An overhead beam crushed three firefighters to death and injured nine others as they fought a fire at a plastic packaging factory on Thursday in Shanghai.

Structural flaws in the storehouses are blamed for the accident, police said.

The blaze broke out at around 12:20 p.m. in the storehouses of Rexam Plastic Packaging (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. in Fengxian District, according to the municipal firefighting and work safety departments.

At 2:05 p.m., a major support beam, 50 meters long, suddenly fell and crushed many firefighters. Three died at the scene, while nine others were injured.

The picture shows heavy smoke rising to the sky when a blaze broke out at a plastic packaging factory on Thursday, July 17, 2008 in Shanghai. [Photo: chinanews.com]

The three dead firefighters – Yao Lei, 20, Shi Jianhua, 31, and Yu Hai, 27 – were all from the Fengxian firefighting detachment. They were all praised by the city authorities.