Police have detained 14 suspects in connection with a shopping mall blaze that killed 19 people earlier this month in northeast China's Jilin Province, local authorities said.

Among the detained were managers, fire-control directors, welders and security guards of the Jilin Commercial Building in Jilin City, where a fire broke out on Nov. 5 and lasted 12 hours, leaving 19 people dead and 24 others injured, officials with the city's public security authorities said Thursday.

It took firefighters 10 hours to extinguish the flames, which ravaged about 15,830 square meters of the five-storey mall.

Each family of the victims have received at least 250,000 yuan (US$37,600) in compensation from the government.

The cause of the blaze has yet to be confirmed, but initial investigations blamed the fire on electric circuit problems.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2010)