Fireworks set off inside an illegal club in southern China created an inferno and a stampede down a narrow corridor to the single exit that killed 43 people and injured 88.

The tragedy highlights the abysmal fire safety record of China’s many dance halls, clubs, cinemas and places of entertainment and coincided with two mine disasters that killed dozens working in the world’s most dangerous coal mines.

The King of the Dancers nightclub in the southern city of Shenzhen, a modernistic boom town on the border with Hong Kong, caught fire shortly before midnight when a fireworks stunt went wrong and set ceiling hangings alight.

Liu Caihong, 31, was among the survivors. “The performer was shooting a gun, trying to shoot off some fireworks. He was aiming at the ceiling but a piece of cloth caught fire. Everybody started running out.” Ms Liu, who sustained numerous cuts in the rush for the exit, said she had no news of her younger brother and 18 friends who had been attending the performance with her on the third floor of the club.

Some 300 people were inside when the main hall filled with billowing smoke and flames. They raced down a corridor to reach the exit and many appeared to have been killed in that stampede. Local reporters who arrived after the fire had been extinguished described seeing a mass of shoes along the narrow passage.

An injured Hong Kong man said: “Many people fell to the floor. They shouted for help and cried. It was like in hell.”

Among the families to suffer was that of Fu Maoxia, 56, from southwestern Sichuan province, who was at the unlicensed club with his wife. They became separated in the blaze and he was searching a nearby hospital for his wife’s remains. “We were lucky enough to have escaped the Sichuan earthquake, but not lucky enough to escape this.”

He described people treading on one another in their panic to get away from the choking smoke and said the doors were too small and the building substandard. One man who said he worked at the club said he had tried to shout to party-goers to make for a rear exit but no one paid attention.

Police have already announced the arrests of 12 people, including the owner.

Government figures show 159,000 fires broke out in China last year, killing 1,418 people and injuring 863. However, the toll could be higher since local officials often cover up deadly accidents to avoid punishment by their superiors.

In 2000, 311 people died in a disco fire in the central city of Luoyang – one of the worst infernos.

However, the deadliest fires of modern times occurred when a spotlight set fire to a curtain that blasted a fireball into a cinema crowded with 796 children watching a school performance. A total of 325 people were killed, including 288 children. Seven of the theatre’s eight emergency exits were locked at the time.

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