One of China's largest blast furnaces collapsed in an iron and steel mill in a northwest province, killing 19 people and injuring 10, an official daily said today. Officials were investigating Monday's disaster at the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company in Gansu province, the People's Daily said. Metallurgical Industry Minister Qi Yuanjing led rescue and fire control operations, the daily said. The furnace, constructed during the Great Leap Forward period of rapid industrialization in 1958, was one of the largest in China, it said. The report gave no further details.
