Fire in China poultry plant kills 119

The fire broke out at a slaughterhouse in Dehui in Jilin province early on Monday, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.

The fire is now said to have been mostly put out and bodies are being recovered.

Some sources, including the provincial fire department, suggest there may have been an ammonia leak which either caused the fire or made fighting the blaze more hazardous. Other accounts speak of an electrical fault.

It is China's deadliest fire since 2000, when 309 people died in a blaze in a dance hall in Luoyang, in Henan province.

The number of workers trapped inside the plant has yet to be confirmed, the agency added, and it is not clear how many workers have been accounted for. An unnamed government official said he expected the death toll to rise.

Dozens of injured have been sent to hospital, but the severity of their injuries remains unclear.