The apartment block continued to smoulder throughout the night
China’s police chief has called for a thorough inquiry into the cause of a fire in a Shanghai high-rise building that killed at least 49 people.
Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu said those responsible would be punished, state media reported.
The 28-storey block of flats which housed teachers, many of them retired, was being renovated when it caught fire on Monday afternoon.
Firefighters battled for several hours to bring the blaze under control.
More than 80 fire engines were brought in and hoses had to be set-up on top of a nearby building to reach the flames.
“She called her husband and said: ‘It’s on fire! I have escaped from the 22nd floor to the 24th floor’, but then the phone got cut off and that was the last we heard from her”
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Chinese TV showed people clinging to bamboo scaffolding surrounding the building as they waited to be rescued.
Mr Meng flew into Shanghai from Beijing in the early hours of Tuesday to guide rescue and relief work.
He urged local authorities to help find those still missing and to ensure the public received up-to-date information about what happened, Xinhua news agency reported.
Mr Meng said lessons should be learned to prevent similar accidents and announced that an investigation team would report directly to the Chinese cabinet.
BBC Shanghai correspondent Chris Hogg says the minister appeared to be trying to pre-empt concerns of a cover-up or an attempt by those responsible to escape justice.
According to one witness the fire started in a pile of construction materials.
It spread quickly up the bamboo scaffolding and then set the building alight.
Flames could be seen licking the sides of the building, and a thick pall of smoke was visible several miles away.
Some survivors escaped by clambering down the scaffolding, while others struggled down smoke-filled stairwells.
More than 80 fire engines were brought in (Image: Nick Garrett) Witnesses reported distressing scenes at hospitals where relatives desperately searched for missing loved ones.
At Jing’an hospital, Wang Zhiliang, 65, scoured a list of survivors for his daughter’s name.
“She called her husband and said: ‘It’s on fire! I have escaped from the 22nd floor to the 24th floor’, but then the phone got cut off and that was the last we heard from her,” he said.
More than 150 families lived in the block. Officials said more than 100 people had been rescued.
Local hospitals said they had treated at least 90, some of them seriously injured.
The number of casualties may increase as rescuers and investigators search the ruins of the apartment block, our correspondent says.
Jing’an district government is housing residents affected by the fire in nearby hotels, Xinhua reported.
One of China’s commercial hubs, Shanghai has some 20m residents and has seen a frenzy of construction work in recent years.
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