A strong fire and heavy smoke engulfed a 12-storey wholesale market building in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Wednesday night.

A total of 181 firefighters and 48 fire engines were still trying to contain the blaze below the fifth floor of Dehui International Plaza, where more than 2,000 peddlers sell clothes, cosmetics, toys and various kinds of commodities.

The building, which covers about 100,000 square meters in southern downtown Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang, has been cordoned off and dozens of police were managing order in the area.

The market usually closes at 9 p.m.

It is still unknown how many people were injured or killed in the fire, which broke out at 8:20 p.m.

All guests in an adjacent 20-storey hotel have been safely evacuated.

Vehicles were forced to detour to a nearby overhead road but traffic around the railway station, which is on the opposite side of the building, remained in order.

The wholesale market is owned by a businessman from east China's Zhejiang Province who invested 380 million yuan (about 52 million U.S. dollars) in the project. The business began in 2003.

A security guard at the building said the fire initially burnt from the basement.

(Xinhua News Agency January 3, 2008)