(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-09-10 16:37

Eight people have been killed and ten others were injured in a fire at a lead smeltery in Northwest China's Gansu Province, work safety officials said on Monday.

Cinders from a smelter set the workshop ablaze in Guazhou County at 8:30 am Saturday, according to a statement from the Gansu provincial administration of work safety.

The newly-built smelter, with a designed annual capacity of five tons of lead and six tons of sulfuric acid, was being debugged when the accident happened.

Among the victims were four technicians from the institute in the southwest province of Yunnan that designed the smelter - three were killed and one was badly injured.

The injured people, three seriously, were taken to hospital.

Initial investigations showed the accident was caused by either improper feed for the smelter, an oil injection failure or an error in the amount of oxygen supplied to the furnace.