Police have detained the owner of the hotel where a gas spill killed seven people Tuesday morning in downtown Yulin City of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, local government said Wednesday.

The fourteen others made sick in the accident were out of danger thanks to timely treatment, according to the city's first-aid center.

The seven dead young men were from villages in the counties of Mizhi, Suide, Zizhou and Lantian.

Investigation showed that the gas spill happened at a heating boiler at the hotel's dormitory for male employees. All the victims were employees of Bauhinia Hotel in Yulin and shared a three-bedroom apartment, according to local police.

The seven dead, including six waiters and a security guard, shared one bedroom. A preliminary medical probe result showed that they died of acute poisoning caused by natural gas spillage from a heater in their room.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2005)