An electrician who is blamed for a hospital fire that left 39 people dead in Liaoyuan City, northeast China's Jilin Province on Thursday afternoon had been detained, the Dongji Branch of the Liaoyuan City Public Security Bureau said Saturday.

The electrician, surnamed Zhang, head of the electrician team for the City Central Hospital in Liaoyuan of northeast China's Jilin Province, was taken into custody for "violation of operating rules."

Police investigation shows that at 4:30 Thursday afternoon, Zhang, who was on duty, found a power outage in the hospital. He then went to the electrical distribution room on the second floor and resumed power supply without checking the cause of the blackout first, and left.

Hearing cracks in the room two or three minutes later, Zhang returned but only found smoke rising in there. Zhang immediately ran out of the building to pull off the switch of the transformer. When he was back again, fire had started to spread.

The director of the department's logistics department, Zhang's superior, was also detained, police said. The head of the hospital is being investigated by government departments concerned, sources said.

The fire broke out at about 4:30 Thursday afternoon and was put out at 10:00 at night.

It burnt some 5,000 square meters of the four four-storied buildings, which are conjoined to form a square, in the largest hospital of Liaoyuan, about 120 km southwest of Changchun, capital of Jilin Province.

"The fire is a rarely seen and the most disastrous one in the country's medical institutions since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949," said Health Minister Gao Qiang, who is in the city to deal with the aftermath of the accident.

Zhao Zhenqi, secretary of Liaoyuan city committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), made an apology on Saturday to local people for the hospital fire accident.

Majority of the seriously injured are now in stable condition and aftermath is being dealt with, he said. Most of the 39 victims killed in the fire have been identified and DNA tests are underway on other remains.

According to Zhao, a compensation scheme has already been made.

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2005)