A 15-member team including senior officials and experts is now working in Hengyang, of Central China's Hunan Province, to investigate into the fire that took the lives of 20 firefighters.

The 20 dead firefighters have been honoured as martyrs, with the memorial service for the heroes held on the morning of November 9, to coincide with country's 10th Fire-fighting Day. It was reported the fire had resulted in the heaviest loss of fire-fighters lives in the history of the PRC.

The fire started in an eight-storey building during the early hours of November 3. The first group of firefighters arrived at 5:45am. Soon afterwards, another 200 firefighters joined them, due to the seriousness of the blaze.

By 8:30am, the fire had been brought under control. However, the building suddenly collapsed around 8:37am when fire-fighters had begun entering the building to put out flames. A total of 19 fire-fighters were buried, in addition to two others who died on the spot. By 4:00pm on November 5, all the missing fire-fighters had been found, but only one had survived.

According to CCTV, the collapse of the building, which had only been occupied for five years, might be attributed to its poor quality.

CCTV quoted an unidentified senior fire-fighting officer who said that his 30-year-long fire-fighting experience told him the building had a serious quality problem.

Yang Youliang, an officer who witnessed the tragedy, said that before the fatal collapse, he found no sign of trouble at all.

Reporters from CCTV found that among all the files on the controversial building, no certificate could be found proving the builders were properly qualified, nor was there any evidence that the building had passed quality and safety inspections after its completion. (Star News)