Family wiped out by fire that killed 8, arson suspected

A fire that killed eight people including six members of a family and sent 17 others to hospital in a town in East China's Zhejiang Province may have been purposefully set, according to an initial police investigation.

A shopkeeper, surnamed Xu, his wife, parents and two children were among those killed. Five of the six adults who died were migrant workers.

Seventeen people were treated at a local hospital, and one remains in critical condition, police said.

Police said local resident Li Faming, who owns the three building that were engulfed by the blaze, has been detained for questioning. Locals said the properties were rented to an online store run by two families who also lived in the buildings.

Xu's partner Liu and his wife were saved from the second floor by firefighter but Xu's family perished on the fourth floor. "I thought our families were saved including Xu's, but all of his families including the young and the old were killed," Liu told the China News Service.

When the fire broke, Liu said he smelled smoothing burning, and woke up Xu and his family who lived in the next room. They discovered the fire on the first floor but they couldn't control it. Liu threw buckets of water on the blaze while Xu led his families upstairs.

Firefighters finally arrived to find Liu and his wife on the second floor but Xu and his family were found dead on the fourth floor of the building.

Xu and Liu, from Sichuan Province, opened the online shoe shop in 2008.