Five workers are dead and five others were injured after a fire broke out in a power plant Sunday in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the local police said on Monday.

The fire began at 1:00 PM at a subsidiary of Datang International Power Generation Co. Ltd. in Togtoh county in the suburbs of the regional capital Hohhot, said sources with the regional public security bureau.

Investigators said the company was building a chimney and, in order to progress faster in the freezing cold, its management had told workers to keep the concrete structure warm by wrapping it in quilts and heating up stoves, which presumably caused the fire.

The investigation is continuing.

(Xinhua News Agency January 8, 2007)