EIGHT people were killed in a fire at an ancient minority village in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xinhua news agency reported today.

The blaze was detected in Sanjiang Dong Minority County about 2:50am on Wednesday when a resident of Maping Village found his neighbor's house on fire, Xinhua said.

It was the second fire in the county this month after a fire burned down 513 houses on November 2, according to a previous Xinhua report.

All the victims in Wednesday's accident were said to be Maping residents, the report added, without revealing the cause of the fire.

The Sanjiang government has built temporary residences for those who lost homes and also dispatched 250 kilograms of food and other necessities to the area, the report said.

Sanjiang, with Dong minority making up 56 percent of its 340,000 residents, reports many fires as it is customary for Dong people to make fires in wooden-made houses, according to Xinhua.

They prefer to connect their houses together on hillsides that usually lack water resources, Xinhua said.

The county is in the cold mountainous area between Guangxi, Hunan and Guizhou provinces. It reported 20 fires that killed four people and injured eight in 2006, Xinhua said.

Last year's fires also cost Sanjiang, one of the 49 poorest counties in Guangxi, a direct economic loss of 9.28 million yuan (US$1.26 million), Xinhua added.

(Shanghai Daily, November 30, 2007)