The fire burnt down the third floor of a market warehouse at the Beifangnanxun ceramics market at about 10 pm (local time), burying them on the second floor, the report said.

The injured were rushed to hospital. The condition of three of them was said to be critical. The warehouse was part of an 11-storeyed residential building, where the first to third floor were being used as warehouses and the rest eight floors as residential. Residents have been evacuated from the building.

In a separate incident, six workers were killed after a rooftop and scaffold collapsed in central China's Hunan Province yesterday.