Shanghai guide to fun | D.D's Club Photo Gallery | after the great Shanghai building fire Nov 18,2010
The fire gutted a 28-storey high-rise in China's busy commercial hub, sending plumes of black smoke over the city.
"The fire started because someone was illegally welding on the 10th floor and the spark led to the big fire. The sparks hit the nylon mesh on the outside of the building," Cheng Jiulong, deputy head of the Shanghai police, told a news conference.
He said the eight people would be charged with "responsibility for a major accident", declining to answer repeated questions about who exactly had been detained.
Xinhua news agency said earlier that four people had been detained. It also provided no other details.
The swift steps to assign blame for the fire that swept up the 85-meter-high building showed how worried officials are to ease alarm among residents about the more than four hours it took to put it out.
"We feel that the fire rescue measures and methods weren't fast enough, and secondly they weren't vigorous enough," said Du Deyuan, a 66-year-old resident who said he lived on the 26th floor and was out when the fire broke out.
"People live in high-rises, and then you have this burn all the way from low down to the 28th storey, burned so the whole building is blazing red. What could the people inside do?"
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