The four fishermen who went missing off China's eastern coast after their fishing boat caught fire in the early hours of Thursday morning have been found alive, the frontier defence authority said.

"The four men were found in the morning and they should be back home this afternoon," a spokesman from the authority based in Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, said.

"The fire was most probably started by a short circuit - the fishing boat was old," he said.

The boat was engulfed in flames at around 1:00 a.m. and eight fishermen on board abandoned the boat and fired emergency flares.

Rescuers found four of them on a life raft and sent them to the nearest wharf in Shitang township of Wenling City at 7:00 a.m.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2007)